Home Is Where The Heart Is
by Dragonire
Summary: Lance knows he has to be stronger, for the sake of everyone that is counting on him and the team to win the war. Easier said than done when they don't have the Red Lion, who is trapped on a Galra Battlecruiser. Lance will do anything to prove he is meant to be a Paladin. He'll get Red back, even if he has to go it alone. Klance, Langst, Self-harm, Swearing, Violence
1. Home

Hello Everyone, here's another story for you all, collaborated with CinnamonChild.

 **WARNING: The story contains self-harm.**

Keep yourself safe and don't read if it is triggering for you.

Much love and enjoy xxx

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 **This Chapter contains Self-Harm**

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 **ONE**

Home.  
To Lance, Home was _everything_.

Altea was his Home, where he lived an innocent and free life with his family, his friends. Days were filled with endless play and laughter, returning home to his parents' warmth when the sun set beyond the mountains and the stars would light the skies.  
He had naught for want; all he ever desired was his, content with the promising future that lay before him, his to decide, his to strive towards and make his family proud.  
He was another then. A child, with simple childish dreams to see the smiles upon his Mother's face, to feel the touch of his Father's hand ruffling his hair, to hear his sister's praises. He only wanted to make them proud.  
But the simplicity of Lance's dreams were stolen from him.

 _Home_ snatched away from him, all too soon.

For is was a monster that descended upon his home. With thunder and fire and screams that filled the once peaceful paradise and warped it into that of a nightmare. For Lance, that was all it could be. No horror had befallen him like this before, so how could it possibly be real?  
But it was real, and a nightmare all at once. Blessed perhaps, with a pure mind that saved itself from being torn apart as it took itself away from the screams, the heat of flames that engulfed his Home until there was nothing left.  
Nothing left but his own fear and panic that pulled him down into darkness, deeper than sleep where the monsters still lurked to haunt him when he closed his eyes.

A nightmare, she called it.  
A nightmare that he would wake from, still screaming, still crying, blindly reaching out for solace from the fangs that gripped his body tight, from the heat that burnt his flesh until he was nothing but bone and dust.  
But no, the fire couldn't hurt him. Because she was there. She, who came for him, warmth and love, to pull him into her arms and whisper to the child that he was safe now, he was _safe._

She wasn't his mother.

She was not his kind, not Altean, but Human. The woman, who looked similar to him in appearance, with warm smiles and kind eyes. She had found him, her and her husband. They had found Lance in a spacecraft, small and badly damaged from the fall to Earth, washed ashore to their private little beach on which they lived, overlooking the ocean.

" _My fallen star_ ," she called him, every time he asked to hear that story, listening to her words with childish glee, his nightmare forgotten as the tale twisted its lullaby around him and settled him to sleep, curled in his arms.  
Not his mother by birth, but his mother all the same. She found him and she saved him. She took him in as her own.

Lance found a new _Home._ On Earth, with his new parents and his new siblings that welcomed him with beaming smiles and open arms. They were like him in many ways, with their cheeky laughter, and his name that fell so lightly from their lips as they called him to play.

All too soon the memories of Altea were replaced by the boy's imagination; his memories distorted through filter lens so that he only remembered Earth. Altea became a dream, and the Galra War only haunted him in his nightmares. Not long, until that was forgotten too.  
But not everything disappeared. But it didn't matter if Lance was the only one in his family to have matching birthmarks on either side of his face. Because Mamá told him they made him special, and he didn't mind them.

Others minded however.  
Bullies and children who would poke and prod Lance and remind him that he was different, that he wasn't really a part of their family, that he hadn't been wanted, and dumped there in the first place. They didn't believe him when he told them he was a fallen star, only laughing at him for thinking himself special. Lance didn't want to listen, didn't want to believe them. He didn't.  
It's just… he hated the feeling their hurtful words would bring; the reminder that there was only a thinly veiled line that stood between him and his family, the ones that he had claimed as his own and those that claimed him as theirs.  
But they weren't really family. He wasn't born to them, so how could he ever hope to be more than a guest to them.  
And that was a thought that he could never rid his mind of.

So Lance built up walls. He put on a mask and became a son to be proud of, adopted or not. He ignored the taunts and the teasing, he learned to use his smile, learned the charm of words and the way people thought; their need for social approval. Everyone wanted praise, everyone wanted someone to remind them of their wit and charm. Lance was the puppy at their heels and they loved him for it.

Then came the Garrison. Surprising even himself, Lance had risen to the top of his class. He remembered when he told his Mamá and saw her smile, felt the press of his Papa's hand ruffle his hair, listen to the praises from his brothers and sisters alike. He had made them proud, but he could do more.  
So he worked harder, and harder still. His scores improved, skills improved. He impressed his peers and those that monitored the Cadet's progression. Lance continued forwards. He got into the piloting class, okay by a technicality but who cares, not Lance, nope he's one step closer to making his family proud.

But that hope was snatched away from him too.

Space was another of Lance's dream. Piloting through the stars, a pilot for the Garrison, making his family proud as he said he would. He told his Mamá her fallen star would return to the sky, that he'd find her something truly amazing. He'd find her a real star and take it back home.  
But Lance can't go home. He can't take Mamá her star, he can't make his family proud if they don't know where he is.  
They don't know that he's billions and billions of miles away, sat in the cockpit of a giant alien warship with his classmates and (up until recently) the missing hero that had inspired him to strive towards this goal and not another.  
His family don't know that he has met an Alien Princess, who bears the same marks as him, the ones that he learnt to hide, to stop the teasing remarks.

They don't know that Lance is a soldier, fighting a war. A Blue Paladin of Voltron, standing against the tyranny that is the Galra Empire; a despicable race of Aliens that want nothing but the domination of the entire Universe.

Lance has a new family now.  
He has Pidge; someone who considers him her brother as much she his little sister. They compete against each other in video games, or they hang out in her lab, Lance ready to help her with her gizmos and numbers and stuff. She'll listen to him ramble about Earth and they'll paint their toenails and watch kids movies when they're meant to be sleeping. He'll tell her about his family on Earth and she'll tell him about Matt in space. That's why she's out here, why she hasn't gone home. She's searching for her family, to take them _Home._

Then there's Hunk, the big lug that is all heart, cotton candy smiles and a warmth that is incomparable to any mother's love. He cooks all of Lance's favourite snacks, even without the boy asking him. He may be sweet as sugar cane, but in secret, he's a prankster at heart, and usually it's not him, but Lance who gets blamed for the mischief they like to pull on their unsuspecting teammates, like that time when they reversed the gravity in the training room, or when they mixed dye with Coran's moustache shampoo, _(it took two whole weeks for the purple to fade).  
_ Ultimately, the two boys have a lot of fun together.  
They're as close as brothers and the best of friends. Lance couldn't ask for anyone else to be tossed into space with.

And of course, there's Shiro. He's the Castle's resident Space Dad as well as Lance's go to man for advice. Not just because he's older, but the man is level -headed and has had a lot more experience than any of the younger team.  
Lance enjoys spending time together with him, most often the two of them meeting in the training hall, sparring and testing their fighting capabilities. Shiro, serious as ever wants them to be ready for battle, but the Blue Paladin is just happy to spend time with his childhood hero.  
Yet he can see the strain it puts on the Soldier that's spent too long fighting for his life in the Gladiator's Ring. Lance is there when Shiro wants to talk about it, and there when the man just wants to sit in silence instead.  
Lance understands. The boy suffers from his own nightmares as well.

The rest of Lance's new family are Aliens.  
There is Coran, who is as much a weird space uncle as he is a second father to all of the team. He's stern when Lance pushes the boundaries and a shoulder for the boy when Lance is feeling homesick. Sometimes he joins in on the pranks and other times he is the one who gets the last laugh.

And then there was Allura.  
She was beautiful and kind, and polite enough that Lance could hold conversation with the Princess, concerning the future of the war, and the possibility of gaining allies after freeing them from the Galra's control. Their conversations were always business, always with a particular avoidance when it came to anything personal.  
Lance, of course didn't pry, he didn't push where he knew his focus wasn't wanted, but he couldn't shake the disappointment at each of her dismissals; kind yet firm, as she draws the line she does not want him to cross.  
Allura reminded him of his older sister back on Earth. And maybe Lance was searching for familiarity, maybe he was just trying to build a bond with the Space Princess to help fill the small void in his chest, so that when she did turn her cheek, it hurt more than he liked to admit.

Lance had a new family now.  
And yet, he feels more alone than ever.

Every day he would question himself, questioning what he knew, why he was here, if it even mattered if he wasn't. His worth wasn't all that much to the team, he knew that, and knew the risk of deluding himself otherwise.  
He was always alone, one way or another. Even when surrounded in the mess hall as they ate meals together, or when they were side by side running through familiar training drills, Lance always felt alone. And scared and worried for their uncertain future.  
He couldn't tell the others of his fears. He didn't want to appear weak to them, didn't want them to think that he was incapable of being the Blue Paladin.  
Day by day, the constant questioning of his own self-worth grew, stronger and stronger until it manifested itself into paralysing fears. It was black-tar that clung to his skin, clung to his mind, making it hard to think, harder to push through the heaviness that dragged him down, heavier than before. Almost too heavy to lift.

They were still searching for the Red Lion.

It's been months since Blue took them far from Earth, into Space and into the unknown. Blue had taken them to Arus, to the Castle and the last surviving Alteans. But she had also taken them into war, into the jaws of a beast that there was no escape. Only the option to stand and fight before they were consumed.

It's been weeks since the attack on the Castle, Sendak long since been thrown to space and the light of Arus' star just another in the expanse of everything around them.  
The Paladins were finally settling into a routine of living life in the vastness of the ever-expanding galaxy.

It has been hard, without the Red Lion and the inability to form Voltron when battles raged around them, when the Galra came with intent to destroy. With the intent to kill.  
But despite their efforts, the team have won many victories, outwitting their foe across vast territories. Sure there were some close calls, and some battles in which Lance feared would be their last. But they had been victorious, and all of them were stronger for it.  
Or at least they're supposed to be.

Lance knows Hunk is. After all, the big guy is over his fear of heights. He no longer second-guesses his decisions, now trusting the team to have his back where his confidence lacks.  
Pidge has come out of her shell; boisterous and loud, with as much energy as the ship's main core reactor and a temper just as hot. But she works hard when the team are sparring, smiling more, knowing that she's much closer to finding Matt and her Dad with every passing day.  
Even Shiro's improved, becoming more confident in leading now, quicker to make orders than suggestions followed by apologies. He isn't just their peer, he is their leader. He is quick to take charge, confident to issue orders when the Galra attack, and keeps a level head on the battlefield, despite his demons that still haunt him.

Everyone was stronger, everyone except for Lance. It feels like, instead of growing with the team, he's falling further and further behind. He can't keep track of the days in space, there's no difference between day or night for him, when all that stands beyond the windows are space and stars and an endless expanse of _nothing_.  
All that separates one meal and the next is a visit to a planet, a fight with the Galra or a trip in the cryo-chamber. There's no sunrise, no sunset, no breath of fresh air that's not chemically cleaned oxygen pumped through the castle's air ducts.

It's hard to feel grounded when even the gravity is artificial.

Lance doesn't notice it at first, but all of a sudden it's there. _Nothing.  
_ It's slow, growing beneath the bitter-ice, the chilling-snow of fear. It's frostbite in his head, his mind succumbing until it is numb, numb to the endless halls that are his to wonder on sleepless nights, numb to the people who fight alongside him in this endless, unavoidable war.

It is the act of _"not feeling"_ that haunts him. The boy didn't really know how he managed to drag himself out of bed every morning. It was more of a sense of duty than a want. It is expected of him and he does so, without complaint. Because who is he to complain, when he stands as the last line of defence for too many in this never-ending war that is slowly draining the boy of his very being.

Lance used to dream, when he was a child, when Mamá told him stories of her little fallen star, he would dream of space and all the stars in the night sky. All of it, before Lance learnt the name of his heroes, of the names of those that sought that stars like him. Yet they were up there, somewhere, cruising through the endless serene of black. Lance wanted to be one of them, to be an explorer who would glide across the night sky. No longer her " _little fallen star,"_ but Mamá's shooting star, the blazoned the night sky with brilliant light, as he carved the path to new discoveries in the great wide out-there.  
Would he find adventure? Or was there something more, something that he couldn't find on Earth? Was it that sense of belonging he craved, that even when his family held him close and told him they loved him, it being something he had never found?

Because, _no_ ; a sense of belonging, or a place, or even a purpose was not Lance's to find. They showed him the way, but all the boy stumbled upon was more pain, more fears, more _questions_ to add to all those that no one had answered before.

Like Allura, and Coran.

When the boy first saw them, he was shocked. Human, his logical mind had thought, wondering just how it could be for Humans to be so far from Earth. But then, when the fog settles and his mind slowed for a chance to catch itself, he saw their faces, and the markings upon their cheeks. Markings practically identical to his own, pale blue against his darkened skin. Ones that he had long since learnt to hide to stop the bullying.

No, these were not human, but Alteans.  
The word was… _familiar,_ and frightening all the same. Because, no it couldn't be possible, Altea couldn't be real.  
It was nothing more than a made-up place that Lance had imagined when he was a child. It was a game he would play with his brothers and sisters, when he took them from their home, over the garden wall to the wonder of his fantasy world where he'd spend his childhood. It was the lie he built to cover the truth of never remembering, instead choosing to believe in the sunsets of gold, the tall white buildings that seemed to stretch forever and beyond.

It was the made up, fantasy world that Lance had destroyed when he grew too old for childish games and dreams that someone had wanted him once.  
In his memory, Altea was nothing but castle ruins as ancient as bones in the soil, the once-smooth rock of the garden wall pitted and scarred, the skeleton of the mighty spires now hidden under years of growth. Tendrils of bark pushed into the white stone and pulled Lance's fantasy to nothing. To rubble and stone and _fire and war and—_

 _No!_ That was nothing but a dream, _a nightmare!  
_ Altea couldn't be real. It couldn't.

And it wasn't. Not anymore.  
But it was once, and it was everything the blue-eyed boy had imagined.

So did that mean, that, the dreams of really having a family, of once having those smiling faces be real, of wanting him, of loving him….

The longer Lance remained in space, the more he believed it to be true, that _yes,_ the Altea of his childhood and the Home of the Princess were one and the same. Now no more, lost to the stars with all her people.  
And the truth that, Lance was not Human like his family. Years spent believing such, vanished in the instance of realising that Allura and Coran were his people, _not_ those like Shiro and Pidge and Hunk.  
They were Human, he was not. But did that mean the two Alteans were now his to claim as his last remaining family, them the only ones who could offer the acceptance he had been seeking for as long as he could remember.

 _But could such a thing really be real?_

No. No it could not. Not to someone like Lance.  
Besides, why would he want to throw away his family, throw away Earth for a planet that doesn't exist, for the childish hope of finding a _"family,"_ just like him.  
He already had a family. Back on Earth, they waited for him, not knowing if he was alive or dead, safe or hurting and wanting for them.

Mamá may have told him her story of how he came to them, but that was all it ever was: _a story._ There was no magic star that brought him to her, there was no flash of light and the wreck of a ship that they pulled him from, before the sea rose up and claimed it for itself, dragging it down to the bottom of the sea. Such a tale was theirs to weave to lure him to sleep, hoping to bless him with pleasant dreams of ' _Altea.'_ Not silly childish idealisms that created the lie that, he was in fact " _a fallen star."  
_ Besides, isn't that everyone's wish at some point in their life? The wish that they are special. That they weren't just the luck of the draw, some few random cells that mingled, merged and mutated into the Human that stood to exist as just another statistic on the global scale. Everyone wanted to believe that they were a gift from god, that they were born for a reason.

Lance believed that too.  
And then he grew up.

Lance understood he wasn't special. He knew that he was just some ordinary kid from the foster system, whose parents didn't want him.  
And to make himself feel better, like every abandoned child, he fashioned himself the tale that he had been lost to his true family. Not from the stars, but a distant land. Sailing on the waves aboard the King's vessel, fallen prey to a storm. One day they would come for him and take him to his true home.  
Lance broke his Mamá's heart when he told her. They'd been fighting; something childish on Lance's behalf and he'd thrown the words at her like they were bullets.

They hadn't made her bleed.  
They'd made her cry.

And she wept. She wept and she wept until Lance cried beside her, apologising again and again, saying how sorry he was, that he loved her, that she was his Mamá and she'd always be his Mamá.  
Even far in space, too far to see her smile or hear her voice, she was still Mamá, and he was still _"_ _mi pequeño bebe."_ Her little baby. And he always would be, no matter how big he grew, or how much he told her he was too old. But it didn't matter.  
Because he was her son. Because he was her little fallen—

"Lance? Hey buddy, you there?"

Lance sat upright, his head snapping back to reality, his thoughts filed away once more, until he had time to himself where he could pull them out, one by one, like sun-stained photographs, black and white, curling at the edges from time.  
Now was not the time for nostalgia. He was meant to be helping Hunk. They were sat in the kitchen together, Lance with the translation notes from Pidge and Coran as he tried to help Hunk decipher whatever ingredients he had bought from their last planet; _Jastra_ or something.  
There had been a market, and Hunk intent of expanding his culinary skills had returned to the ship with many a prize. He had called upon Lance to help him with the food's preparations. Or at least, the translation of each to understand what they could be.

"Lance? You alright?" Hunk leaned across the counter, fingers dusted with purple powder as he pressed it on his friend's brow, mind jumping to fever. Because Lance is never quiet for long.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, _yeah_! Sorry I was just daydreaming," Lance said, plastering on a grin, letting the motion move his entire body as he pulled back from Hunk's touch, brushing his forehead to rid it of the powder remnants. Hunk laughed.  
And then, because it was part of his ploy as goofball and court jester, Lance fakes a yawn - which turned into a proper yawn - his jaw nearly unhinging from the effort. "Come on Hunk, this is boring. We could just throw it all in and hope for the best."  
"And have the oven explode? Not on my watch. Besides, it would only be the two of us clearing it up afterwards and I'd rather not have any extra work to deal with, _thank you very much."  
_ Lance shrugged when Hunk turned back to the purple " _flour_ " looking box in his hands, satisfied that he'd managed to swing a curveball.

Hunk had known him for years, so it was sometimes a challenge to fool him. Deflecting worked better, but that didn't mean the Yellow Paladin didn't hold onto the idea that there was something bugging Lance. He would store it in his memory, then find Lance and corner the poor boy at the most inopportune times.  
Then it was left to Lance to deploy Plan B; where he chose to feed Hunk tiny little titbits of _not-so-bad-things-that-are-getting-me-down_ , just to settle the questioning. Homesickness was only the final line in his arsenal to get hunk to drop his questioning, knowing bringing it up would cause the big guy to as feel such too.  
Even if it was the most effective excuse, Lance hated to use it against him. Hunk was his friend and he didn't deserve the lies, the reminders that home is far away, that Lance is the one who brought him here and should hate him for such.

But the words bring solace and peace. Or as much peace that Lance could find inside his own mind. He found it harder and harder these days; the tar consuming thoughts inside him, devouring happy memories until it left only marred, warped versions that had him hating himself all the more.  
It was hard to keep fighting when even his head was against him.

"Lance?"  
 _Oh shit, he's done it again._

"Yes Hunk I'm listening," Lance lied. But looking at his friend's face, he knew that this time, he'd been caught out. "Are you sure, buddy? Because you've been looking a little down these past few days." And so begins Hunk's attempts at interrogation.  
The boy just nodded softly. He didn't want to open his mouth. He didn't have any excuses, nor silver-tongued lies to pull him from the pit before he buried himself in it. He was afraid that if he tried to answer, this time, he'd just fall apart.

Lance shuffled in his seat, uncomfortable under Hunk's burrowing stare. "Fine, I guess I'm not sleeping. I just thought it was, like my body clock, all wrong. Because we've been on _Jastra_ for… _what?_ Five days? And their days are like thirty odd Varga? I guess my body is still trying to figure that out."  
 _Please buy it, please buy it, please—_

Hunk gave him his classic " _mom_ " look. "Lance, if you're tired, you know you don't have to force yourself to help me. Go chill. Lie down and what not. You've got three hours roughly till dinner is cooked. I'll come get you when it's time."  
Lance saw his exit and took it. "Yeah sure thing. And if I don't wake, just save me a bowl or something. I'll probably end up getting up in the middle of the night or something stupid."  
"Your bowl will be in the cooler."  
"Thanks Hunk."

The blue paladin yearned for the normalcy of social interaction, but if being in the presence of his friend meant his walls were collapsing then he couldn't risk it. So he hurried from the kitchen, making an excuse to Pidge who called out to him in the corridor, telling her Hunk needed help translating before rushing to his bedroom and locking the door behind him.  
His bleak, cold, uncharacteristically clean room.

There wasn't much that he kept in the terms of personal belongings.  
There was a picture of his family, one that he was lucky enough to have on his person the night Shiro crashed his spaceship in the desert. It was precious to him, and kept under his pillow, so that the nights that he'd lie awake, unable to sleep, they would always been close by. He'd pull them towards him, look at their smiling faces, hoping to dream of home.

Propped up against the wall was the closest he could come to an acoustic guitar. He'd bought it off of a trader a while back; the seven-stringed instrument reminding him of his brother's hand-me-down he used to strum on, on rainy days looking out the window and being all melancholic, like he was in some dramatic music video.  
He didn't play much, in space. But the guitar was another link to home, and he took what he could, so far from the familiar green and blue.

The last of Lance's possessions wasn't something he had let anyone else see. He kept it in a small grey box, hidden away, in the headboard of his bed, behind a loose panel that only he himself knew about.

It was the solace he sought, and it was that; that clear, overpowering thought that had Lance crossing the room, climbing onto his bed. With practiced precision, he had the box in his lap, hands on the clasp. He stopped before throwing the lid, eyes on the door, listening for the sound of approaching footsteps. Perhaps Pidge, or Hunk, or even Shiro who was concerned enough about Lance's quick escape to come asking for him.  
Hah, as if he would be so lucky. Of course, no one came. There was no sound, from Human or Altean otherwise, and Lance felt himself relax back into the cushion of his pillow, flipping the lid.

The boy dug past the tape and the bandages, his fingers catching on the cool smooth metal of his blade that he buried beneath. Not so much a blade as it was as much a shard of glass; a perfect edge sharper than any razor he could find. Something that no one knew he'd possess, with no one to watch him as his mind danced upon the line of danger and insanity.  
There were many blades he could take for himself, for such purpose; knives from the kitchen, weapons from the training hall, scalpels from the infirmary. Even a razor from his shaver in the bathroom.  
But Lance was cautious. Perhaps paranoid.  
What if Shiro was to notice something was up, and came in and counted the blades in his bathroom, to make sure the boy wasn't broke on the inside. What if Coran noticed the missing scalpel, what if Hunk noticed the missing knife?  
They'd notice something like that. They wouldn't notice the shard of vitrified crystal, taken from a battlefield; which one, he did not know.

And as Lance held the glass, the sharpness pushed hard against his flesh, he felt the spiral of darkness well up from inside him. _Not special, not needed, not strong enough, not special, not fast enough, not Altean, not good enough, not Human, not needed, not wanted, not—_

The castle's alarm is what stopped him.  
Shattering the silence with its high-pitched wailing, Lance almost imagined the sound of screams and tears. But none were shed for him.

" _Paladins, we are almost upon the Galra fleet. Hurry, to your lions!"_ came Allura's voice over the comms-system, calling out for the soldiers to mount their beasts and ride, to deal bloody battle with the enemy.  
Lance looked down to the blood that welled from the cuts upon his arm. There would be no time to clean himself up. It would have to wait. Protecting the Castle came first, hell, the safety of the others came first. Before him, before his pain, before his insecurities.  
They came first. _Every time._

Lance was the last to enter the changing room, rushing past Shiro and Hunk who were already heading to their lions. They didn't see the way Lance held his arm close to his chest, hiding the blood that seeped through the sleeve of his jacket, the way he deliberately turned his body to the side to hide the limb from view as he rushed in and Pidge rushed out.  
"How many?" he called after them, watching the three charge down the corridor, faces masks of stone. "Don't know, didn't hang around to count," Pidge yelled back. "But I think this is the fleet we've been searching for. We haven't come across one this size since leaving the _Javeeno_ system, but it's not just that. It looks like they're splitting in half. Not all of them are staying to fight us, so Allura thinks that the fleeing ships have the Red Lion. We have to get it back."  
Then she's gone, chasing after Yellow and Black, leaving Lance the peace of the changing room.

Lance shed his clothes quickly, stashing his bloody jacket in some random storage locker, not in the main room, but a side room on the way to the Bridge. He hid the marks of his self-harm, concealed underneath his Paladin armour and the sleeve of his undergarment and gloves, the pain of the fresh cuts hidden under a mask of seriousness for the upcoming battle.

"Six battlecruisers," Allura was saying as he entered the Bridge, ignoring the holo-projection that filled the room with stars and the half dozen large ships. Dotted around them, flying in formation were dozens of Djalg squadrons. Their foe was the largest they had come up against, so it stood to reason that they were protecting something important. And that something _had_ to be the Red Lion.

Everyone else had already gone ahead, Lance catching up as normal. Allura bade him good luck, to which he nodded before throwing himself down the zipline.  
The Comms came online, with Shiro laying out a quick-fire strategy to find their target ship. There was a definite divide in the fleet now, Allura directing them from the Bridge that the further three main cruisers and four smaller had changed direction, heading away from them, while the remaining ships and at least two thirds of the Djalg turn to face the castle that closes in on their position.  
Their guns began to light up, way before the castle's own guns would be in range. Coran scrambled for the shields as the Paladins scrambled for their lions.  
Shiro's voice crackled in the Comms as Lance climbed into Blue's pilot seat, trying to ignore the pain as he gripped her controls. "Lance, you were the first to bond with your Lion, and the quickest to find a secure connection with her. I know Blue is yours, but we have no one to fly Red. I'm, going to need you to go get her. We'll keep the focus on us while you board that ship and get Red back to us.  
"Remember guys, the aim isn't victory, it's buying Lance time so he can deliver the final Lion for Voltron."

Everyone yelled out in agreement, Lance's body on auto as he piloted her from her hangar, up into formation of planned approach. He slowly pulls back, allowing Black and Yellow to take the lead, Green above him as they try their best to hide Lance from view.

It's not long before the stars are filled with fire and explosions, as the Galra and Voltron engaged in a fierce battle. Black draws out his jaw blade, leaving debris in his path, trying to cut open a path for Lance to break from the battle and pursue the other half of the fleet. It is moving fast, faster as it builds up power and their window for their plan is slowly diminishing.  
Allura and Coran have slowed their retreat, trying to pull them back into the fight with a constant barrage of fire from the Castle, but they're being outmanoeuvred by the numbers of Djalg and the fleet that is acting as a wall between them and their desired prize.

"Damn— Damn it! I've got some on my tail," Hunk yelled, the sounds of explosions joining his less-than-chipper tone. "They're too fast, I can't quite shake them. Pidge can you—"  
"Sorry Hunk, I've got my own adoring fans. I've got too many chasing me, but I can't— _Damn!_ There's no chance to turn and take them out, I—" An explosion rattled the communication line, everyone calling out for their youngest teammate. Lance saw the barrage of fire being laid down upon his family, Blue turning in mid-air at the lightest of touches, pulling away from the obvious path to the main ship hauling itself from the fire fight.

"I'm coming guys," he yelled, turning Blue on her heel, an ice beam freezing the three that were inbound for him. He made to push Blue into a nose dive, but Shiro's voice stopped him in his tracks. "No Lance! You need to get the last Lion. We've got this. Now go!"  
"But Shiro—"  
"Go!"

There was no way Lance would've been able to cleave himself a path to his family, no way to turn back once he saved them and give chase to the fleet. He knew it and Shiro knew it, taking away Lance's choice by giving him an order.  
Despite everything in his being telling him no, Lance pulled hard on Blue's controls, once again speeding after the carriers far from the battle. None of the guarding Djalg noticed his approach, none slowing him down as he sped away from his family, wishing them to be safe, knowing he could do nothing for them while Red was so close, his for the taking.

Blue reached the rear of one main carrier. Her maw was strong enough to rip through the metal like it was nothing, breaching the Galra ship deep enough that the air rushed out, along with soldiers, androids and supplies. Not Lance though. Taking shelter in Blue's mouth, he held on tight until the pressure dropped and it was only him left in their immediate vicinity. But the attack had called upon the attention of others surrounding him.  
Blue was in danger, but she wouldn't fit inside the breach, and there was no time for Lance to re-join her in the cockpit and pilot her to safety. This was their last chance. Too close to _Everall_ , and the Galran's controlled systems, this was the last time they'd be given such an opportunity.

Lance couldn't turn back now. And doing what he had never done before, he ordered Blue to leave him.

When Shiro told Lance he had been the first to find a secure connection with his Lion, he would never have imagined that just with his voice, Lance could ask such a thing of his lion. With their mind link, he showed her the path, back to the Castle, back to the Paladins where she would be safe.

And with the Djalg on her tail, and her goal in mind, she left, leaving Lance on an enemy ship.  
Alone. Separated from the team.


	2. Patience

**TWO**

The boy's patience was wearing thin.  
Too many days remained the same, too many like the one that came before, identical to the one that was sure to follow, with no end in sight to this damning cycle. He once thought himself like the mountains; constant and unmoving.  
But rain, over time, weathers away the mountain stone, just as time aboard the ship wears at Keith's his patience and resilience to the interminable cycle. He can feel the push is strong today, as he stands behind the ship's helm; a notion always unappealing, and as repulsive as it was to the idea of giving it all up.  
Hypocritical in standing, but for good reason.

Commander Keith, legionnaire to Zarkon and the Galran empire, stood at the Bridge of his battlecruiser and stared out at the untamed, unruly space that lay before him, wishing he was somewhere, _anywhere_ , but here. Not here, in space, but here in the position he stood as part of the Galra force sweeping across the Universe leaving only death and destruction in its wake. Yet, the boy knew why he remained.

It was for the freedom this position brought him.

Not for fame, not for glory, nor for the sake of his Emperor and the corrupt dictatorship he controlled. The very same that brainwashed the populace into believing the Galra were some great race, destined to rule everyone, everything, for all eternity. A childish thought.  
It was a wonder how Keith's patience hadn't snapped already.

" _Corrlux_."

Keith turned at his title, his attention drawn by a lower ranking soldier who addressed him in native tongue – respectfully – and stood waiting for permission to speak. He was frozen in salute and would remain that way until the Commander acknowledged him.  
Not particularly focused on anything else, and hoping for a break in the boredom that was dulling Keith's mind, he allowed the soldier to speak, a slight wave of his hand motioning for him to continue, before the Commander turned back to the stars. He reminded himself to keep his expression lack and not draw focus to the irritation that shifted under his skin. The men that he commanded knew he was quick to temper and knew how ruthless his iron fist could be, should they test his waning patience.  
Today was certainly one that saw Keith quicker to bite than usual. It was becoming common now, with the stress of his plans weighing on his mind, urging the instances to grow frequent in nature. But Keith couldn't let the crew think something was amiss—

"Sir, Commander Thrigg has called upon you for your council."

But then… But then anger always kept the crew from overstepping their mark. The fear of his retaliation kept the rest of them from questioning his commands.  
Aboard his cruiser, Keith's anger kept order.

"He called upon _me_?"  
Keith's voice was cold, the bite of a winter-chill and as suffocating as the void of space. In rage his eyes were as black as a starless sky, his voice steel on ice and bone, with no warning to the limits of his anger. He had already berated another soldier just this morning because Keith didn't care to stop himself. Now would allow him to remind his crew of his temper, and remind them to keep their distance and silly petty questions to themselves.

"Well Soldier? You bring me news then refuse to speak. Need I help you loosen your tongue?" The steadiness of his threat brought fear to the face of the soldier who had unwillingly angered the Commander, who had once again turned from the outreach of stars. He faced the soldier and the crew of the Bridge who deliberately kept their eyes down and their faces blank, as not to incur the wrath of their _Corrlux._ Not like the fool that stood within reach of his blade.

"No sir, I- I'm sorry sir, it's just that I—"  
"So, not only do you have nothing else to tell me, you proceed to waste my time with your babbling?"  
"N-no sir, that is not— What I mean to say is—"  
"Spit it out!"

Perhaps Keith's anger was getting the better of him. The Galran soldier looked positively terrified. That might not bode well if important messages need to be relayed and the entire crew were too scared to pass them across for fear of lashings.

"So Thrigg hailed us. What is his request?"  
"Commander Thrigg's fleet has entered the _Dwale_ _System_ , near the cloud nebula. He requests to speak with you."  
"Concerning…?"  
"S-sir?" The soldier didn't have an answer to Keith's question, turning to anyone for help who might know what it was he was meant to say. No one came to his aid.

"Eyes on me Soldier. You're talking to me, _so look at me_." The grunt did as he was told. Keith ignored the trembling in his boots. "Did you think to ask Commander Thrigg what it was he wanted my council on? Did you neglect to remember we are on an important mission from Emperor Zarkon, who asked me _personally_ to undertake such an invaluable task."  
Keith stood tall, despite being shorter than most of the Galra present. He had never let such a thing inhibit him, nor his feelings – even if his anger was harder to control.  
Time had taken pity from his mind, allowing words to be thrown like knives, clear and precise, not to hurt, but to frighten the weak kittens back from the jaws of the beast.

"Go and ask him. If it's nothing more than a friendly chat then tell him that I _disrespectfully_ decline."  
The soldier nodded, the quaking in his boots joined by the wavering of his tongue. "Vrepit Sa."  
"Vrepit Sa," Keith repeated, words as cold and threatening as any threat he could think of. Those gathered on the Bridge winced from memory of the last to anger the Commander, and the final words he spoke before cutting the soldier down where he stood. To save themselves from gaining his attention, they busied themselves with their tasks on the consoles, pulling up screens to monitoring the surroundings and the status of the fleet.  
The _Corrlux_ rarely disturbed anyone who was putting their efforts to use.

Granted silence and a moment for peace once more, Keith turned back to the stars and the path that lay ahead of them, away from Everall and Galran Central Command.  
The fleet was travelling fast, but conservicely so, maintaining a level of dissonance from what lay around them. They didn't chase prey that stumbled upon their path, nor did they seek out civilisations to capture on planets that they passed.  
The fleet kept to its course and would remain that way, as per _Corrlux's_ orders. The only fault to their pattern was when they entertained the few whims of Captains, Commanders and Fleet Admirals that called upon them with questions and requests. To curry favour with them kept Keith's crew well informed with current affairs, and let them hold onto the disguise that he had bled into the crew until they believed his lies.

 _Of course they were lies._

As Keith stood as Commander to the one and only fleet in the Empire in possession of a Lion of Voltron, why would Zarkon ask for it, not to be brought to him, but sent far away? Why would such a thing, so obvious and so perceivable to be false, be simplistic in fooling the crew?  
Because they were mindless slaves, that's why. Slaves and nothing more, with only the want to serve a merciless and insane ruler. Brainwashed. Programmed like robots to think and feel or not at all. They were given their instructions and did what was expected of them. _If not?  
_ Well, they'd incur the wrath of their _Corrlux_ for one.

Keith was unlike his Kin. Growing up, he always felt that the things that had been done was wrong. He didn't care if it was in the name of the Galra race or in the name of the Empire, _it was wrong.  
_ He had been one of very few to be able to think for himself, able to feel more than anger, yet it was anger that was the whip that lashed, the key to the chains carved from fear and the only thing his Kin had every truly known. Pity was a wasted emotion.  
Trust was volatile and poisonous, as much as it was a double-edged blade. He had no friends, no allies, no one to stand beside him.  
Yet, Keith continued to risk his life and defy Zarkon, Emperor of the Galra for the sake of wanting to destroy what was fundamentally _wrong_.  
 _How could no one else see? How could no one else understand that this couldn't go on, this utter annihilation couldn't continue, for soon there would be nothing left._

Keith's plan hadn't always been to stand as Commander amongst the Galran Army. When he was young, he would lash out and fight the authority that told him Zarkon was the true King to all and it would be an honour to serve him. _An honour my ass.  
_ But no matter how he struck out, defied the elders and cursed the Emperor's name, it had no effect on all that surrounded him. It wasn't until the Galran kit heard the name of the ghost's that had long-since haunted Zarkon's reign.

 _Marmora._

Asking of them had more effect than any plight Keith had ever brought upon his peers. The retaliation to such a name was the light in the dark that showed Keith the path to take.  
But finding the Marmora had been impossible.

Not one willing to accept defeat, Keith sought a way to show his usefulness to them, knowing they were always watching. He showed his strength as so they would employ him in their ranks. Years of hard work, of kissing feet and bowing, of saluting and training and Keith was finally a Commander. Finally, in control of his own fleet, and one that had recovered the Red Lion no less, Keith was finally in a position of power to help the Ghosts of the Blade.  
But still they remained elusive; smoke in the air that he could not grasp—

" _Commander, Commander!"_

The Galran was pulled from his thoughts, his face held a confused look on it, almost as if he had forgotten his surroundings for a moment. Before another could detect the slip in his mask, Keith pulled it firmly over his features, rounding on the _who_ that had broken his train of thought. It was a soldier, different to the one before, hurrying forward with urgency and an underlying fear that remained from watching his _Corrlux's_ earlier altercationwith the messenger.

"This better be good, soldier—"  
"Corrlux, enemy ships have been spotted on approach, starboard to our position. Sir, it's the Voltron Lion."

 _Voltron? Here?_ But how?  
Keith had made sure to take every necessary course of action to assure that none but his crew and _only_ his crew knew of their quarry. They wouldn't tattle; the fear of Keith's whip too great, the fear of damaging Zarkon's mission too much to risk for idle gossip.

But then again, their foe _was_ Voltron. They were a group of rash and unpredictable fighters, with abilities yet to be determined by the Galra force, even with the few times their paths had already crossed. Even if Keith had planned for every possible outcome, it was without a doubt that the Paladin's would do something unexpected, and turn the tide in their favour.

Now they came for him and the Red Lion in his possession.  
To face them now in battle was not a child's game Keith wished to play. He had put enough effort into concealing his plans from his "comrade's ships." He wouldn't allow this expected, yet abrupt ambush, to mean anything more to him other than a minor inconvenience.

 _But, what if this wasn't an inconvenience, but a gift from the gods?  
_ Rather than delivering the Red Lion to the Marmora; the only ally Keith had ever considered, wasn't Voltron and its team of renegade Human's just as much a friend in this war. Not friend per say, but their goal was the same and the methods practically identical. "Hack and slash" until Zarkon's reach was stunted and could no longer grow to infect the universe.

Yet Keith hadn't thought of Voltron, because he barely knew anything of them, other than their knack for causing chaos and their unpredictability. No one would've expected the stir they caused; the Humans that had appeared out of nowhere, hailing from some unnamed, unexplored back-water planet in the _Quar-Klux_ system, where little was known about the savage civilisations that still remained unaware of the other life that lived in their Galaxy.

It was the Galra's pride that lay fault to their lack of knowledge when it came to these fur-less, violent beings. Never one for the purpose of seeking familiarity of other races, the Galra only ever cared for themselves. Perhaps ten thousand years ago, when Alfor and Zarkon were aligned as Paladins, then things were different. But war changed that.

 _Isn't change the only constant that everyone is truly guaranteed?_

Voltron could attest to that.  
Simply their resurrection and that now they stood against Zarkon, rather than with him. Voltron wouldn't side with Zarkon, clear in the path they had forged through the stars; the unrelenting force they amassed as they attacked every Galra base, every ship, every patrol with vengeance, as if they were the grieving survivors to a forgotten, desolate world.  
Their fury rivalled that of the Galra's and that in itself showed proof of them to be a worthy adversary in this endless war.

 _So what of an alliance?_ Not between the Galra and Voltron, but with the Paladins and Keith himself. If he offered them the Red Lion as a sign that he was on their side, would they allow him to join them and destroy the Galra before the war was lost?

"Corrlux, what are your orders?"

The crew were waiting on him, thinking his silence in legion to his mind planning a strategy of counter-attack. But no, Keith's mind remained upon mutiny and the risk of such a plan of action.  
He couldn't side with Voltron, here, now. They were to engage in battle and there was no way for Keith to reach out to them to halt the attack without—

 _No, no! What was he saying?  
_ Give Voltron the Red Lion? _That was insane_! The very reason Keith had hunted it down and stole it right from under the Emperor's nose was to hide it.  
Sure, handing the weapon over to Voltron would make them more powerful in their fight against Zarkon, but they were just a few against the many millions of Galran soldiers, with their infinite ships and rising numbers in the form of battle-ready androids and detection drones.  
Few against many was folly, and handing over the Red Lion for that little burst of strength was as good as Keith hand-wrapping the war machine and delivering it to Zarkon's throne room himself. The exact _opposite_ of Keith's plan.

No, Voltron was not strong enough to take on the Empire, even with their arsenal strengthened by the Red Lion. Even if they fell, with four and not five, Keith would be far enough from Zarkon before he realised his "Commander's" intention. And Keith would keep on going.  
He just had to figure out how to pilot the beast. It wasn't impossible for him, but still countless nights spent hounding away in his mind for the answer had left him tired and with more questions than answers. The Lion had no weakness to its forcefield, and no weapon, no matter how great, would let Keith penetrate it. But the boy was anything if not stubborn and he wouldn't let the Lion best him. He was saving it from Zarkon, couldn't it understand? It needed him as much as he needed it. _He needed to find a way._

Keith wouldn't fight Voltron.  
Not with the full force of the fleet. Even if victory was but a faint hope, he wouldn't want to leave any lasting damage that would wipe them out sooner. Even if not allies with Keith, they are still a thorn to Zarkon and a much-needed distraction that would keep the Emperor's eye from his own schemes.

And with a plan in action, Keith turned to the soldiers awaiting orders.

"Send orders to the forward ships. I want all Djalg targeting the Lions before they get close, the cruisers with their fire aimed on the Altean Craft that accompanies them."  
"Xardin," he said, turning to his second-in-command, the younger replying with a salute as he was called. "Send orders to Pelaxon the forward ship. Have him take control of the battle. The rest of the ships will escort this battle cruiser away from the fire fight. We cannot have Voltron take the Lion. Now go: _Myzen!"  
_

The soldiers scrambled at the fleet Commander's orders, the alarms and lights joining the fray as the entire ship was warned of the incoming enemy, not yet in visual-sight, but detected on the long-range scanners.  
Soldiers scrambled to their fighter ships, the holo-screen on the main deck lighting up with a view of the Djalg occupying the space between the cruisers, taking formation under the orders from the officers of the ships staying to fight.

Keith turned from his place at the window, returning to his chair at the helm, addressing the pilot who stood to his right. "Take us out of here, before Voltron is on top of us."

"Yes _Corrlux_. As you order."

The soldier complied with his Commander's instructions, making haste to instruct the engines to maximum power, their positions facing forward-starboard to speed up their attempt to turn and change their current course before Voltron could intercept.  
"Four signatures, closing in fast!"  
"Do not lose your heads. With Pelax diverting their attention, we will be free to pull back."  
"But the Galra do not retreat—"  
" _Are you questioning a direct order, Xardin_?" Keith's voice carried clear through the chaos, the threat clear without him having to suggest as such. His second in-command averted his eyes, a bow of his head in apology. "No Sir, just querying as to the nature of our strategy."  
"You need not bother. Focus only on adhering to my orders and leave the thinking to me. _Vrepit Sa."  
_ " _Vrepit Sa."_

The dismissal was followed by a call of order, and the previously worrying soldiers began to calm as the forward ships pulled away from the Commander's Battlecruiser. With the second engines kicking in with another burst of energy, the battleship veered portside, causing the other ships surround it to scatter in hopes of not being knocked aside. They were quick to assemble themselves in formation once again, half of the guarding Djalg sent to bolster the attack force of the forward fleet.  
Only two battle supports and a half-legion of solo-fighters remained with the Commander's vessel. The navigations took control of the ship's course, calculating the route to take them towards the _Leuen_ _System;_ but, known for its unpredictable space-storms and the fluctuating orbit of _Venris,_ the idea of their route sent a flurry of worry throughout the crew.

"Commander, the navigation is set to enter a red zone. The solar flare from _Leuen_ 's star has disrupted the balance of _Venris_. The planet's core is too volatile. We cannot approach—"  
"I've given my orders, now follow them. Our ship can withstand the force of the planet's fluctuations, the Paladin's will not. They will be forced to travel around, giving us time to join up with the fleet that patrols that far side, near the mining sectors."  
"But what of Pelax? You've sent his to his doom—"  
"He is a Galra soldier that knows the law of battle, soldier. Just like every Galra soldier that serves Zarkon and carries his name where they walk, Pelax is prepared to lay down his life for the sake of victory."  
"But sir, Voltron—"  
Keith turned on the soldier with frustration, the fear of his plans crumbling around him fanning the flames in his chest. "Voltron has yet to be defeated by _any_ Galra fleet. But if we stood our ground and demanded battle, we too would be lost. I would lay down my life for Zarkon, but I know doing so would lose the Red Lion, and it would risk the reign our Emperor has now. This is for the sake of the Empire." He closed the distance in three deliberate strides, his nose inches from the Galran's who dared not pull away.

"If you are a coward who will not lay down their life, then you're not truly Galra."  
The words weren't his, but of the many teachers and scholars that thought the whip would break Keith's will, that his resilience was just the creation of orphaned by the war. They weren't words he had ever believed, but he knew the lesser minded drones of his kin did, and it was these words that pulled emotion from the soldier, a firm salute masking the fear he felt at angering his _Corrlux._

"I am true Galran. I stand for the Empire and fight for Emperor Zarkon."  
"Then set the course and do not question me again."  
"Yes Sir. _Vrepit Sa._ " It was enough for the entire crew to focus on their duties, although many knew not to question Keith's orders. They simply had to prepare themselves for the unknown that lay before them.

" _Corrlux_ , we don't need to retreat. We're strong, we can fight." Apparently not all knew when to hold their tongue.

The Commander turned, rage flaring hot as he came face to face with Xardin. "This isn't retreat, Xardin, this is strategy."  
"But the Galran way is " _Death or Victory!"_ We cannot turn tail and flee from the culm, when they are there, within our grasp to crush and destroy."  
Xardin was still young, but he was as much a mindless drone as many veterans in Zarkon's legion. He thought it an honour to serve under the Emperor's name, the dictator not seen as a King, but a living deity. His nature was pure, his headstrong and stubborn attitude one that Keith had taken a liking to, despite his desire for distance from everyone. He had even considered Xardin a possible ally one, but as much as the kit's nature was pure, he was already corrupted. And Keith couldn't risk everything for the sake of showing his subordinate the truth.

 _Corrlux_ rose form his chair, ready to admonish his second-in-command, but Keith's words remained unvoiced as an almighty crash sounded throughout the ship, the Bridge's display lighting up as an explosion ricocheted across the bridge's view. The unmistakable sound of blasters sounded through the smoke, and the roar of a Lion followed, too close for it to be the echoing from Pelax's incursion. "Tell me what's happening!" Keith demanded, but no sooner had the words left his mouth, was he thrown to the floor. Another crash, much louder than the first one, signified something had hit the ship.  
And Keith didn't need to be told what had just hit them.

"Commander, it's the Blue Lion! It didn't remain with Pelax's ships. They didn't even see it escape them, and now it's attacking out ship." Another crash. Keith managed to remain on his feet this time, hand on his hip as he reached for his sword, his fighting instincts screaming _danger!_

Another crash. "Commander, it's trying to breach the hull."  
"Return fire!" Keith yelled, mind working overtime. _Attack, don't attack. Are they friend or are they foe?  
_ But Keith couldn't risk the Lion for the sake of keeping a nuisance alive. But then, destroying the Blue Lion would weaken Voltron and the remaining Lion's would fall to Zarkon. _Oh god, what is he to do._

The metal of the bridge screeched, the ear-splitting shriek twisted and mangled in the deep rumbling of thunder, the entire battleship shaking as the Lion clawed at the hull, it's body slamming into it again and again in attempts to gain entrance.  
"Don't let it breach the hull! If it damages our defences when we're inside _Venris'_ atmosphere, we'll be at risk to the toxic fumes."  
"It's in our blind spot. Our guns can't aim for it."  
"Then get the battle supports to fire on us! I don't care if they hit this ship, but we need to get the Lion off of our ship _NOW_!"

 _Damn Voltron and damn the chaos they bring!_

Keith looked about the Bridge, ashamed and amazed at the effect one Lion was doing to the crew. There wasn't one soldier who wasn't scared, but there was something to be said about their ability to function under the stress of possible death. _Brainwashing_ his head reminded him, and whatever faint ghost of respect Keith felt for the Galra, vanished.

Now was not the time for feelings.  
 _Now was the time for action!_

"Commander? _Commander_ , where are you going?" Xardin had turned, searching for orders from his _Corrlux,_ only to see Keith turning his back on the Bridge, unknown emotions creeping in through the cracks of his mask. "Commander!"  
"I'm heading to the Red Lion. If the Paladins breach the hull, then that's where they'll go. But that Lion might as well be a distraction, so I'm going to head them off." He slowed his run from the Bridge, turning back to his second. "Xardin, you're in charge while I'm off the Bridge. I want that Lion under heavy fire. See to it that it _does not_ gain access to the ship, and that the others do not follow us. Fail, and Zarkon with know it was you who sat at the helm."  
He missed the automated reply of "Vrepit Sa," already gone. He wasted no time with stairs as he vaulted the rail of the helm, dropping down to the lower level where the communication officers were frantically relaying orders between patrols and the other half of the fleet, that were still battling the remaining Lions and Altean vessel. Keith spared them no time, nor focus as he rushed from the Bridge, through the maze of corridors and endless halls and down towards the hangar bay.  
He hadn't got far when an almighty crash was heard and, once again, Keith was thrown from his feet. He didn't fall, clamouring to the rail of the walkway as the ship lurched, the gravity function flickering. Whatever damage the Lion inflicted didn't remain, and Keith was able to make it to the lowest level when it rammed the hull again.

This time, it broke through.

 _[Security breach, security breach. The Blue Lion has breached the 52nd floor, South Cargo Hold 3. I repeat, the Blue Lion has breached the 52nd Floor, South Cargo Hold 3. All soldiers to intercept. Do not allow the Paladins to take the Red Lion.]  
_ "I GET IT!" Keith roared to the ship's internal communications system, not bothering with changing his course. By the time he returned to the fifty second floor, the Paladins would no longer be there. They were heading for one place and one place only: the forward hangar bay, where the Red Lion waited under guard.

However, when Keith reached the forward hangar bay, he found it to be empty. No guards on the door, neither Galra nor Android. _Damn it. Was Keith too late?  
_ Preparing to fight, the Galran pulled out his blade and charged into the hangar bay.

The _empty_ hangar bay.

No guards and certainly no paladins. Just the prize of a Red Lion supported from the ceiling with its particle-shield barrier still in full effect. But Keith didn't lower his guard. If his men had abandoned their post to seek out the enemy aboard their ship, then he couldn't very well go galivanting off after them to give them a lecture about leaving the Red Lion unguarded. And leave the Red Lion unguarded…  
But standing out in the middle of the room would give the Paladin's the opportunity for a stealth attack, if they managed to evade their pursuers. Better for Keith to mount his own ambush, even if it was only him against an unknown number of assailants.

The Galran hid himself near the Red Lion's feet, in a nook created by a stack of containers, power cells and the like. Nothing that could aid him with a surprise attack, unless he wanted to blow himself up with the enemy.  
A warm sort of feeling settled on the back of his neck at the thought, a memory of laughter just quiet enough to be heard. _A Paladin?_

Keith turned to look, but there was no entry point from behind him, save the air vent, but that wasn't big enough for a drone to squeeze through. The feeling brushed over him again, and this time Keith _knew_ he was being watched. _But from where?  
_ There was no one else in here, he knew that. Logically, the Paladin's couldn't have fought their way to the Lion before he had. Besides, they breached the ship _after_ Keith reached his desired level. _So who—_

"Oh thank god."  
The unfamiliar voice caught Keith's attention instantly, his eyes pulled towards the southern door. And there, in gleaming white armour, a little marked from battle, a little worn from scars of fight, stood a Paladin of Voltron. The Blue one, if the accented colour was anything to go by.  
 _Were they alone? Was that why it was only the Blue Lion to chase them?_

"Hey girl, looks like I found you," the Paladin said, the low-tone of their voice layered in relief and tiredness. He was clutching at his side, giving occasional glances back to the door he'd come in from, but not much of the outside could be heard over the continual alarm system. It was beginning to give Keith a headache.  
The Paladin limped closer, breathing heavy, easy to hear as the gap between Human and Galra continued to lessen. He was taller than Keith, but he didn't look like he'd be much of a threat, what with the way he was already exhausted and injured, if the tightness of his breaths were anything to go by.

Keith had never seen a Human, and while this one was still hidden under armour and helmet, Keith wasn't really all that impressed. _Were Voltron's victories embellished before they reached central command? How could these Human's take out a Starfleet battlecruiser with only_ _one_ _Lion?_

"Hey, Red. You gonna open up and let me in?" The Paladin came closer, speaking to the Lion as if it had sentience of its own. Keith wanted to snigger at the childish notion, but a wash of warmth enveloped him, stronger this time, the sound of laughter light and teasing.  
And in that instant, Keith realised whose eyes were upon him—

"Red?" The lion didn't move, nor did it give any sign that it had heard the Paladin. Undiscouraged, the Human reached up with one arm, rapping their knuckles on the force field, much like knocking on a door. _Yeah, as if it were that easy-  
_ Keith could've cursed out loud when he heard the soft purr of the Lion, watching with a slack jaw as the force field slowly dissolved into nothing. _No. No way! No way it could've been that easy!_ Keith tried for ages to try and get that damn force field to give, and this bloody Human comes along, taps a few times and says " _please?"_

 _No, no way! Keith is not having it!_

Before the Blue Paladin could reach out and touch the Lion, Keith sprung from his position, the surprise taking his opponent off guard, Keith able to dart in close enough that the flat of his blade struck the Human across the shoulder. Afterall, his aim wasn't to hinder Voltron too much. They were a necessary distraction and Keith needed them at full-fighting-strength to entertain the Emperor.  
Still, the Galra's attack took the other by surprise, the strength of his swing enforced with the momentum of his jump knocking the Paladin back and off his feet. He didn't stay down however, rolling with the motion before rising to his feet once more.  
So, Humans were agile. Keith had to remain on his guard and expect the unexpected.

Still, the Galran Commander wasn't expecting the small handle-like contraption in the Human's hands to change shape into an old-model repeat blaster. Three shots fired in the space of a tick and Keith's blade only just managed to deflect the second two. The first hit him on his shoulder, but his armour saved him from taking any real damage. Still, he felt the blow the laser dealt, and it wasn't something he wanted to feel again.

"Back off, or I'll kill you," the Paladin warned, voice steeled low and threatening. _Quaint_.  
And pointless, because no Galra would ever think of retreating or backing down to the Human, even if they hadn't seen him before he adopted the charade of strength. Keith knew he was tired, that he was hurt. He wasn't about to back down. It was because he was stubborn, not mindless like his brethren's " _victory or death"_ mindset they all too willingly adopted.  
Keith was nothing like them. He wouldn't back down from this fight, even if he didn't want to battle the Paladin. Not for fear of losing, but for the unknown thought to keeping the Red Lion and throwing the Blue Paladin back to his team so he could keep pissing Zarkon off.  
 _Dahast! This bastard was really ruining his plans!_

"If you think any Galra would back down from the chance to fight a _mighty paladin of Voltron,_ then you're sorely mistaken."  
"No one's taken me up on the offer so far. But there's no harm in asking."  
"You waste your breath," Keith spat, searching for an opening. _There!  
_ He charged in, keeping his body low to the ground. A roll took him out of reach of the gun's barrel, a well-aimed kick at the Human's hands and the weapon was kicked high into the air. Keith followed through with a fist, but the Human's gaze hadn't followed his gun, but remained on Keith, waiting for the second strike. He blocked it with ease, his own three-finger jab darting in, just skimming the Galra's throat. _Fuck, that would've hurt.  
_ But Keith replies with his left hand, bringing up his blade. He plans to balance it under his enemy's chin, demand surrender then worry for the way he's going to smuggle the little shit off the ship before any of his soldiers track him down to this room. If not, Keith's fleet will be put to the top of Voltron's " _Wanted_ " list. Not in the plan.

Neither was being disarmed.

One minute Keith's holding his blade and in the next it's somewhere near the Red Lion's paw, his wrist in the Human's grasp, instinct telling him to immobilise him. All he can do is grab back. Their locked together, one tick, two ticks, before Keith brings up a knee and boots the Human square in the chest. "Flexible little fucker—" the Human grins, a feral grin under his visor. He's pale, but not as pale as tales of Haggar's Champion suggested. His features were small, petite in comparison to Galran, his skin smooth and furless. But his snarl is Galran and it's the only warning Keith gets before his captive spins; the hold Keith has breaking before his arm can be snapped the wrong way. He jumps back, reeling from the kick that caught him in the ribs.  
"—but I'm flexible too."

The boy's smile is teasing and challenging all the same. Keith beckons with his hands, stance at the ready. "Come on then. Show me just how flexible you can be."

The Human takes the bait. He charges in, left swing, right, feint and dodge. Keith's fist swung at mid-air, snapped back to defend from the high knee kick that would've landed a solid blow on his thigh. But the Paladin's hand is too close to Keith's rear and he had no time to pull back before a hand firmly grasps his tail, pulling hard, pulling Keith backwards – off balance.

"You fucker," the Galra hisses, crouching low in defence, his ears pressing back to his head as he bared his fangs.

It was the Human's turn to bait him into the spar. "Now, now Kitty don't get angry."  
Keith snarled. He could feel the smog of anger under his skin, the familiar heat of fury wrapping around him, his claws and fangs bared as he dived forward. The Paladin rolled. Keith's claws scratched at his armour, dealing no lasting damage, but showing the boy that his Galran combatant was getting serious.  
Left, right, left, right again. Keith caught the flesh from the back of Human's hand, claws carving through the weave of his glove, drawing blood. Keith felt his body tense from the shout of pain. _He wasn't meant to be hurting him. He was meant to be getting this shit out, if not all of Keith's plans are going to crumble around him._

"You're not getting that Lion," the Galra cursed after dancing to the song of battle for too long, without finding a decent opening. The Human was strong; strong and agile enough to keep up with the Commander, but that only served to agitate Keith more; his window of opportunity rapidly closing. _How come no one had found them yet? How was Keith to settle this matter without losing the Red Lion, or his disguise as Commander in the Empire?_

"I'm taking Red with me, and you're not going to stop me."  
"You won't even get close to touching her. She stays with me."  
The boy charged. Keith danced out his reach, mindful to keep his tail from the grabbing hand that reached, too close for comfort. He didn't find a hold.

"You can't stop us. We'll defeat Zarkon."  
"You can't, he's too strong." Because he was. He was _invincible._ Long-reigning supreme leader of the Empire, with little known about weakness, or even anything that would irritate him besides failure and insubordination. Even his wife was nothing to him if casting her aside meant victory. Besides, planning to murder the witch was far more dangerous than defying Zarkon by stealing the Red Lion from right under his nose.

"Getting tired?" the Human baited, pulling Keith's mind back to the present.  
It seemed his opponent was not one for silence, even during battle. And uncharacteristically, Keith replied in kind. "Not in the slightest. I'm just biding my time. I'm not alone on this ship, but you are, and you're outnumbered."  
A series of emotions flashed across the Human's face: _fear, worry, doubt._ It answered Keith's question about the numbers of enemies aboard his ship: _just the one._

"So what? Did your _'friends'_ send you on this suicide mission? Or are you trying to be the hero and save everyone by yourself?" Hypocritical taunts, considering it was similar to what Keith was doing as he stood, surrounded by enemies on all sides.

The Galra's words seemed to have an effect on the other; if his silence was anything to go by. His mouth opened, closed, opened, but no taunt nor jeer was replied. "Have you forgotten how to surrender?" Keith grinned, rolling his shoulders, showing he was still ready to fight as they circled together, eyes never leaving their opponent. "How about I help you. Repeat after me: _please don't kill me, I'm too pretty to die."_

Anger shone in the boy's eyes, but when he spoke, he was oddly amused. "You think I'm pretty?" _The damn fool was laughing at Keith!  
_ "Pretty stupid," he snapped, following the insult with a fist. It caught the boy's chin and he fell back, but Keith didn't chase. "You're here, alone, with no real plan to get the Lion and get back to your team. You've stranded yourself on my ship."  
"Your ship?"  
"Yes, _my_ ship." The Human smiled; in an attempt to hide his true feelings of fear no doubt. "Then if I take you out, the fleet will fall into disarray. My friends will beat your ships and we'll take back the Red Lion. Zarkon is as good as dead"

Keith scoffed. "If you think that to be true, then you're dumber than I thought." He lunged, just as the Blue Paladin did, yet he rolled to the side, hands down, fingers curling around the cool metal hilt of Keith's blade. _Ah fuck.  
_ "Not dumb. Just inventive."  
"Definitely dumb, and maybe a little lucky."

"Yet not lucky enough."

Out of nowhere, a hand reached down from behind, thick grubby fingers curling around the Paladin's neck as he was lifted off the ground. No sooner had he picked up the sword, he dropped it, fingers clawing at those that curled around his neck, trying to breathe when the Galra flexed his hand and the boy's air supply was threatened.

Keith stood straight, regaining composure, narrow eyes sent to his comrade. "Xardin. This was my fight. You interrupted." He hid all emotion behind a mask of indifference, knowing that the only one that could sense his fear of the intrusion to be the Red Lion. She remained sat where she was, unmoving, and defenceless with her shields down. _Shit, shit shitshitshit—_

"Sorry _Corrlux_. I only sought to help you."  
Xardin didn't release the Human, but he did lower him enough that the boy's toes weren't scraping along the floor of the hangar bay. "The Blue Lion managed to breach the hull, but she ships chased it off. When you didn't return to the Bridge, I came to find you." He pulls the Human closer, tone thick with amusement. "But imagine my surprise when I find this _culm_ on board. What happened little Paladin? Did you think sneaking in the gaps in the walls would bring you victory." His hands curled tighter. The Human couldn't get any air.  
"I know many are scared of you, but face to face, I can see now that you're nothing more than vermin; _bemis_ to be crushed under our boot—"  
"Xardin." Keith's voice carried low in the quiet; the alarms had been shut down but during his fight with the Paladin he hadn't taken notice. Now there was nothing but the sounds of heavy breathing and the desperation of one almost out of air. "Release him."  
Keith couldn't let the boy die. It didn't matter he was his enemy, it didn't matter that their foe was the same. He knew Voltron would never accept the help of a Galran, nor would he offer his help to those that would destroy his plans. But even if there was no alliance between them, he was an asset all the same. And Keith could not weaken a force that stood against Zarkon, no matter how few their numbers.

The Human made a noise in the Galran's tightening grasp, evident that the creature was attempting to struggle fruitlessly.  
"Release him Xardin."  
" _Corrlux_?"  
"I said, _release him."_

Xardin turned to his Commander, questions falling short of his lips, body lack-lustre in gloating that he had turned on the boy. Now he was just confusion and a want for understanding. "Corrlux I don't—"  
"First you interrupt my fight, and now you refuse my orders," Keith said, marching closer. The threat was clear to the younger, who dropped the Paladin and stumbled a step back, body falling into salute, eyes staring straight ahead.

The Human was already unconscious. His body crumpled, just a mass of limbs upon the hangar floor.  
Without thought, or acknowledgement to his actions, Keith rushed forward, by the boy's side in an instant. He pulled the helmet from his head, rolling him to lay on his back. His hair was similar to Keith's fur; the colour of royal palms. He brushed it from the Human's face, a hand over his nose, and a sigh of relief given when the faint touch of breath was felt upon his palm.

"C- _Corrlux_?"  
 _Ah fuck._

"I gave you direct orders to take control of the fleet," Keith said lowly, aware his tail flicked in agitation, unable to hide his anger from the soldier. Xardin eyes the movement, a glance to his Human captive, then back to his Commander, trying to piece together what wouldn't fill the gaps. "Tell me. _Why are you here?"  
_ Anger wasn't a mask Keith needed to pull over his features; he was already angry, torn from the fear of being found with the Human. What were his options now? Take the boy captive and hope that Voltron would find them again to claim him back? But then that would leave Keith with no alternative than to torture the boy for information, to uphold his guise as a Commander in Zarkon's Legion. The crew would expect Keith to take him to Central Command: a valuable prisoner, and trophy for their Emperor.  
And if he refused, and took the Human with him, then he's simply inviting Voltron to attack, again and again and again until they have both Paladin and Lion.

But what if he avoids all that? What if he kills Xardin, blames the Human—  
But how would he get the Human out, get him back to his teammates without altering the crew to his mutiny. He couldn't contact Voltron, he couldn't intercept them in hopes of a friendly chat. Any communication with the whilst he held their teammate captive would be seen as nothing but a trick to them.  
 _What plan could he make, what steps were his to follow to assure victory?_

"You— You didn't return. I left Chejva in charge, while I came to assist with any damage the Lion inflicted. But you weren't on the fifty second level. You said you were coming here, and I came too."

"Your excuse doesn't not justify your abandonment of duties. It is you who I left in charge, not Chejva. While she is fit to be responsible in my absence, I can see that you are not, _Lieutenant Commander."_ Keith's voice was steel with anger, the inferred threat clear as if spoken out loud. "But not only have you rejected my leadership, but you reject order. Your negligence could've loss us the battle if the remainder of Voltron come to take back their teammate."

"But Pelax—"  
"I don't believe Pelax can defeat Voltron, neither could he damage them enough to stop any further attack on our fleet. But it was necessary to pull back, until we could converge with another fleet to bolster our own fire power." The words spilled from Keith before he could give himself time to think what they could mean, hoping the rapid pace of lies would confuse Xardin enough into accepting Keith's word like he always had and leave him to flee. The Red Lion's shields were down, he could take her and escape, take the Blue Lion with him and continue on to the rendezvous location. _He just needed to fool Xardin._

"But the Human—"  
"This Human will have vital intelligence that we can use, Xardin. You are not to harm him any further."  
But the order, that would normally as absolute law wasn't acknowledge. Keith looked up, to the eyes that looked on him with more questions. And fear.

"Xardin, I gave you an order."  
"But why?" Xardin's voice was soft, barely a whisper. "Because I said—"  
"You weren't fighting him," Xardin said, his voice louder this time. Stronger. "I've seen you fight, on and off the battle field, in the arena. I watched you when we trained together, I worshipped you when I was a kit, and you…. You…"  
"Xardin—"  
"You weren't fighting him. Not seriously. Not with the intent to kill him. I watched you, I've _always_ watched you. I know how strong you are, I know that _that—"_ he said, pointing away from them to the space that had seen Keith square off to the Paladin "—that wasn't your full strength. That wasn't your strength at all!"  
" _Xardin—"_ But it was too late. Xardin had seen.  
He looked to the Red Lion, to Keith and the Human he held in his arms. "You lied. This isn't under the orders of the Emperor. He would _never_ order the Lion's to be sent from him. They're the weapons he needs for absolute rule. You're not acting under his orders, but against them."  
Xardin pulled his sword. "You're a traitor!"

The betrayal was clear as day, Keith even feeling a momentary pang of guilt at hurting a soldier that had followed him, _respected him,_ but no. Keith couldn't let himself feel. Not as everything crumbled around him and he was faced with the unknown to save, not only himself, but the Human, the Red Lion, and the remainder of the undefeated universe.

"I won't let you leave here alive!" the younger Galran yelled, all uncertainty gone from his voice as he took a stance, blade aimed for Keith's throat. "You're not fit to lead this fleet. You never were. You may have fooled everyone else, and I'll admit, even me. But you can't say anything now that will save you now. But I've long since respected you, followed you, _looked up to you,_ so I'll let you draw your sword. Fight me, _Corrlux,_ and I will show you the might of the Galra whom you have turned your back on.  
"I will make you regret it."

Xardin launched himself across the space between them, Keith slow in rising from where the Human still remained, lain across his lap, oblivious of the two Aliens that fought over him.  
Facing Xardin was nothing like facing the Paladin. Whereas the Human had sought victory through the desire of claiming the Red Lion, Xardin fought with vengeance, fury and a hatred that burned as hot as Keith's for his tainted birth-rite. His sword, pulsating with the hue of the Galran Empire, carved clean through the air, thirsting for Keith's blood. But metal met metal as Keith parried with his own weapon, the sounds of swords clashing filling the quiet hangar as the beasts snarled at one another.  
Xardin pushed Keith back, back towards the Lion, his strength and energy not mired by an earlier battle. But he lacked experience and the ability to calm his mind when facing a dangerous adversary. With every wound the younger inflicted, Keith replied with three. Light wounds, shallow wounds, because the _culm_ still has a heart and he may want to believe that he cared not for the Galran Empire, but it said nothing to his care for his Lieutenant Commander, who had followed him through the ranks. Any true soldier wouldn't care for an enemy, but then Keith never considered himself to _be_ just like the other Galra. He was different. He wasn't blinded by lies.

And even as Keith told this to his subordinate, useless, and a waste of time, he didn't stop and realise the hope that Xardin would see reason. Why would he? Why would any of them?  
It wasn't like Keith hadn't tried. When he was a Kit, and he defied those that raised him, taught him, punished him when he refused to believe their teachings that Galra were the future and the only future for the Universe. But no-one listened. No one _ever_ listened.  
So what was this pointless effort in trying to explain to Xardin that what he believed was wrong? Was it the meagre hope that he wouldn't have to kill the younger, that was pure but corrupt all the same? Was it the hope that Keith would no longer be alone in his battle against the Empire?  
Whatever it was, it wasn't worth speaking, upon.

"There is nothing you can say to justify what you've done! You're not fit to be called Galra!"  
And even though it was a thought that occupied as much of Keith's thoughts as fighting alone, there was some sort of feeling, reminiscent to hurt, when he heard those words.

Xardin launched himself across the space between them,

It had always been a point questioned by bullies and ones that thoughts themselves better, stemmed from Keith's lack-of-height and the difference in his way of thinking, acting, _being.  
_ Keith's fist would attest that wasn't the case. His blade was what stood for him now. "You're playing a dangerous game Xardin. You fight for a tyrant, an _oppressor_. He's corrupted everyone with fear and delusions."  
The words brought only anger. "I am not afraid. Not of the Humans, not of Voltron, and certainly not of you!"

Xardin charged again, launching himself forward, fury and fire his allies as he saw his blade stab for his Commander. But Keith was nimble, and his blade caught handle and hilt, turning the sword to carve the air, Xardin toppling forward from surprise. He didn't lose his footing; the effort of years training saw him feinting. Keith did not fall for it, and pushed Xardin back, pulling blood from his cheek and a cry from his lips. "Curse you, you half-breed scum!"

Swords clashed, again and again, Keith fighting for ground and the chance to pull back from this fight. Xardin knew, but he had nothing to lose but his life. So when Keith tried to run, faking dodging in the attempts to gain ground to the Red Lion, Xardin knew where to strike. Not his Commander, that was too far from his reach, his blade and his fury.  
No.

Who better to target than the unconscious Human that fought beside him, whose very existence was a bane to Zarkon's rule. If Xardin eliminated one of the Paladin's of Voltron, then even if he died by the Commander's blade, hasn't he assured victory for the Galra?  
Their moral code may be _"Victory or Death,"_ but Xardin could gladly welcome both with a final strike of his blade.

And so his sword swung, not for Keith, but for the Human that lay at his feet.


	3. Mutiny

**THREE**

"Curse you, you half-breed scum!" Xardin screamed, voice torn from the emotion of betrayal, the knife in his back more painful than anything he had felt before. _How? How could Keith do this? To him? To the Galra?  
_ The Commander was strong, he was one of Zarkon's _best._ And still, it wasn't good enough. Still the _culm_ had to turn his back on the Empire.

No, no, it couldn't be true.  
 _It couldn't!_

Swords clashed, again and again, Xardin pushing hard, his mind torn between fighting for revenge, and fighting for the truth. And his Commander, foolish and disbelieving of the kit's strength was falling back, losing ground. Xardin pressed him again.  
His mind pressed too. _Was this just a ploy? A strategy to earn the Paladin's trust, to simply pretend to join them, before destroying them from the inside.  
_ But if so, how come it hadn't been discussed? And what did it have to do with the Red Lion. The secrets, the lies, the questions—

Corrlux rolled, the agility and speed taking him clean from Xardin's reach. But that wasn't what halted the boy. It was… _wrong,_ somehow. Xardin had fought the man enough times to know he attacked close up, got in, inside the guard and used his speed and agility to dodge, duck and flip his opponents on their tails before they could follow him with their eyes. So why—

And then it was clear.  
 _Corrlux_ wasn't taking him seriously. To him, Xardin was still just an unruly kit whose claws had got to long. To him, he was just another to be toyed with in this fools' game of betrayal and treachery.  
But Xardin was so much more than that. He was a loyal soldier, proud to serve the Galra, reliable and devoted, through and through. _He_ knew where his loyalties lie and what was asked of him in the face of such.

 _Victory or death._

But here, now, there was no choice that had to be made. No one, or the other, no sacrifice thought to be unworthy and foolish. Because with one final strike of his blade, Xardin could welcome both. Victory before death.

And so his sword swung, not for the one he called his commander, but for the Human that lay at his feet.

* * *

"NO!"

Keith didn't understand the nature of caring that came over him, seeing his body move without conscious thought, abandoning the distance he had gained to throw himself between blade and body of the unresponsive boy. Unarmed and defenceless, Keith used his body as a shield, thanking the stars for his armour that took most of the blow. Most, but not all.  
Xardin's blade cleaved downwards, the blade edge finding purchase in flesh where two armaments joined and parted to allow movement of Keith's legs. It was a weakness in his suit; one that Xardin's sword exploited. His cry of pain was only short-lived, the mirth of his foe just so when Keith's closeness allowed him to plant the hilt of the Lucite blade deep into Xardin's own weakness. It gained him distance and a wariness that the younger had all but abandoned during their fight, thinking victory was assured.  
But Keith wouldn't fall so easily.  
In fact, _he wouldn't fall at all._

"Weak," the Galran Soldier yelled, ignoring the pull of his thigh as flesh tore when he stretched out, over the human, instinctual and protective. "You can't beat me so you aim for him. But you can't even beat him unless he's unconscious."  
"And who made it so," Xardin snarled back, blood on his lips, blood on his hip and hand as he pressed paw to the gash that wasn't deep enough to inflict lasting damage but enough that it was going to hurt like a bitch for the next week or two. "You snuck up on him, his eyes on me and your hand around his throat before he had the chance to notice you were there." Keith growled low and insulting. "It's nothing but _cowardice."  
_ "Like you would be able to best him," the other hissed, the fear and pain of the wound getting to him, ears flattening back, eyes flashing dark with a threat he could not support. "You hadn't defeated him before I came."  
"But you interrupted. That was your fault. And you stole my victory."  
Xardin waved his blade between them. "Then come steal it back."

Invitation accepted, the Galra launched himself across the divide, a guttural cry wretched him his pain of burning muscle. Perhaps the wound was deeper than Keith thought.  
He held his blade out to the side, like the broken wing of a bird taking flight. Keith's dagger was small in comparison to Xardin's blade, but it was enough for him; his skill and speed the other weapons in his arsenal that would be used to take down this overconfident kit in need of a good thrashing.

Dagger and sword clashed, parried, blocked and bunted. Xardin darted back and in, back and past, feet stealing distance from his kin, closing between himself and the Paladin beyond their sparring ring. He sword levelled out, ready to attack, leaving himself open. "Fool," Keith thundered, but he was the fool to believe the stupid mistake. He didn't think to pull his momentum as Xardin spun, ball of his heel the point of turning and the blade, spear-like, flat to the point angled with the Commander's gut. There was no time to dodge. Unless—  
Keith twisted mid-momentum. He couldn't move from the path of the blade, but he could choose where the blade would strike. His hip bone; the marrow of bone his natural defence, protecting his gut and a deep wound that would've surely secured Xardin's victory. _Dahast!_ Keith had granted the younger another handicap, and the pain hurt worse than the first strike, but he wasn't out of the fight. Not by a long shot.

The cry of pain is celebratory to the older, his dagger once again dripping with blood as his blade drew along the underside of the younger's arm. He can hear a sound in the back of his mind, reminiscent of a purr, or a growl, but he dismisses it in favour of dancing into Xardin's reach, too close to be bunted, enough that the hilt of his dagger slams down painfully on the kit's skull. He stumbled back.  
"What are you doing _Corrlux_? You'd throw everything away. For what? For him?" Xardin gestures to the Human with his blade, gazes breaking when the Human groans from his place on the floor. "They're weak, they're all weak and you'd join them."  
"At least they stand against Zarkon. No like you! You're just a mutt, a dog to fetch a stick and nothing more to him." Xardin roars, as if the words are a direct insult to him, and not the Emperor. "You used to stand for him, you fought for him—  
"I never fought for him," Keith snarled, bitter-poison of anger on his tongue, rage clouding behind his eyes like noxious smoke. "I used him. I used the power pretending to stand for him would bring me. I did this for the sake of the Marmora" for the sake of Zarkon's defeat. _Never for him."_

Xardin doesn't understand. _He can't understand._ "No. You're lying," he says, as if speaking the words aloud would make it true and all this nonsense of separate sides would be just dust under the carpet. "You were like a brother to me—"  
"The Galra don't care for family ties," Keith roared back, his blade following suit. But that sliver of weakness inside him pulled on the strings of his body; limp and puppet like as the strike swung short, giving Xardin ample time to dodge. Still he screamed and swore and cursed Keith's name.  
"I trusted you! I followed you! And this is what I get for allowing myself to think of becoming like you? For letting my mind divert from the rules? It's how you fell, but I won't stoop to your level.  
"I know where _my_ loyalties lie!"

The Galra growled threateningly. _How could he have been so foolish? He should have known better than that._

Keith throws himself forward, without thought or feeling. He can't. He can't let himself think, let himself feel. If not, he'll remember sparring with Xardin. The fault of emotion will cloud his judgement, pull his attack and leave him to pick up the pieces left from the Galran sword.

Xardin's eye shifts between Galra and Human, a snarl pulling his lips to bare his teeth. The glare betrays the change of focus, the target no longer his Commander…  
Before Xardin can move, Keith does. He swings his dagger in a wide arc, legs moving to take him between enemy and he who remains on the floor. Keith can hear him, hear the pain in his throat as he coughs on breaths of air. "Get to the Lion," Keith orders, much to Xardin's dismay.  
But bound by the effects of being choked, there's no way the Human would be able to get up and run under his own wind. It was up to Keith to get him up and get him out, away from this hell hole that he's been trapped in for too long. There's no plan, there's no moment to stop, to think, to decide the best course of action as enemies flood in, called by the sound of metal on metal and the absence of Commander and Lieutenant Commander.

" _Corrlux_!" one of the guard yells. There's no moment to wait between outnumbered and executed, as Keith barks out orders in quick-cut succession. Fear was no longer a part of the equation. Anger neither. Just the blinding need to survive. _To survive and fight another day.  
_ And if he had to turn on all of them, then so be it.

"Xardin is in league with the Human. Cut him down!" the Commander ordered, jumping back behind the line of soldiers that knew nothing of Keith's betrayal.

 _Seconds.  
_ _That's all he had._

"No, it's not me, it's him," Xardin yelled. They didn't listen, of course they wouldn't; the words are the same as any traitors, weightless and weak, securing the unsheathing of blades as the Galran soldiers surrounded the Lieutenant Commander.

 _Seconds._

Keith uses the confusion to rush to the Human, still slumped, heavy pants coming too quick, too fast to let him catch his breath. "Get up," he orders, voice low. The Human's eyes flicker behind his mask, finding Keith. He glowers. "Fuck off." Keith ignores him, well aware that Xardin is still shouting. Which means the soldiers haven't moved in to detain him, which means they were listening to his words—  
"I said get up," Keith hissed again, moving in closer, one hand under the boy's neck, another under his legs. He expected the boy to be heavy, considering his size, but there was something odd, and strangely unnerving. _No, no don't think just do._

Keith pulled the boy into his arms, standing straight, ignoring the way a hand pushed against his chest, the chill of a curse falling upon his ears. " _Don't fucking touch me,"_ the Human mumbled, but the darkness takes his mind and his body loses the willpower to fight. He falls still in Keith's arms.

 _Seconds._

Keith doesn't stop, doesn't look back, doesn't do anything but run to where the Red Lion sits waiting, the purr of her voice in his mind caught between amusement and something akin to worry. If Keith had the mind to care, he might've paid attention, _but he hasn't got time._

Mother's mercy grants Keith an ally in the form of the giant Altean Lion, that bends to him when he rushes to her feet. He barely registers her movements, the cries of the soldiers behind him and his own garbled noise when the jaw opened and closed, him and his quarry safe inside.  
Or perhaps safe was the wrong word, because now Keith is trapped in an ancient war-machine, surrounded by the enemy that will see him for the traitor he is, and he's got less than three ticks to figure out how to pilot this damn thing. Even less time to find the bloody cockpit.  
But before Keith can even _think,_ the floor beneath him lurches, and he can do little to stop his descent to the ground, cringing when he lands on the Human he had been carrying. The Human makes no noise though, so he's still unconscious, and Keith realises he's about to be as well, as the world shifts _again,_ and he is thrown backwards into a wall.  
 _Shit, shit, shitshitshitshit—_

The inside of the lion is dark, shadows only fought with the dim glow of red that shines from little pockets of energy imbedded into the upper ceiling. Everything else is just metal walls, sharp corners and hard floors that sees Keith falling again and again as war erupts in the Hangar. The heat is back in his head, that laughter that spurred him to fight, but there's more. A voice is calling to him, the memory of words on the front of his mind, but he can't understand, _he doesn't understand._

 _Save us,_ he says, before the floor rises up to meet him and he's out cold.

* * *

He awoke in stages. Before his conscious could fully register who he was, where he was or why he was even there, his body felt something first: An ache, a discomfort.

 _Pain_.

Pain, sharp and digging, like needles with minds of their own that burrowed under his skin, into his spine, into his bones, into his _soul._ It's the only thing that Keith registers as the reality around him pushes through the dark sludge of unconsciousness. It clings to his being, making his arms heavy, legs heavy, everything heavy. _And hurting.  
_ Through all the pain and the tar, Keith sought understanding. He wasn't in his quarters. The unfamiliar darkness around him was not what he was used to when waking; the familiar battleship-purple walls, floors and lights extinct from _this_ reality. So…. _Dreaming_?  
No, no, Keith was in too much pain to be dreaming. Even with the regimental simplicity of his Commander quarters, there was comfort when he slept that didn't lead to the feeling of waking upon a bed of nails. And Keith was sure he wasn't waking. More like, emerging from a coma…

The darkness around does little to give him an idea to where he is. A hand pressing again the more-solid shadow next to him tells him the cold, sleek _thing_ is some sort of wall. It's metal, regardless, and when Keith shoves it, it won't move. So; _wall._

The wall, for all it's being of hard and solid and unmoving, doesn't hold in context an unpleasant feeling that would urge him to move. The Galran's brain doesn't think he needs, to, still succumbed to the numbness of lingering concussion that welcomes sleep, trying to drag Keith back into the early state of unconsciousness.  
Keith didn't want to get up. He didn't want to move at all. But he knew he had to.  
Moving is hard, when the one trying to move is disorientated.

At first, Keith didn't even know where his body was. It was as if his head was here and his body was somewhere else. Probably in bed, recovering from another brutal training session beating grunts into shape who thought being under Corrlux's order provided chances to skip out on training and duties. It certainly feels like Keith has been fighting, but _who,_ he is having trouble remembering. For all he knew, if could've been the wall.  
Judging by the thrum of his headache bashing into his forehead, it was clear who stood victor.

The more he thought about it, the more Keith began to realise that he was wrong. His body wasn't anywhere else. His body was here, laid on the cold floor, in pain and aching.  
His back certainly didn't appreciate the stone-bed, nor did his legs that were awkwardly twisted up, _off_ the floor as they hung over another slumped dark-shadow. Whatever it was, it wasn't something the darkness could reveal.  
He wishes the darkness would hide his pain, but Keith is in no luck there. He can feel the buzz of injury radiating softly from both of his legs, in the area around his knees as if he had attacked something with the joints without bracing first. There was an irritating ache all up his left side, and a heavy stickiness that clings to his stomach and thigh. _Could it be water?  
_ But the unmistakable smell of blood, pungent and strong, tells Keith that it is not the case. Old blood or new blood he could not tell, but it made him feel sick. It was in the air. He couldn't breathe—

 _Ignore it, ignore it. Needlessly worrying will do nothing but exhaust you._

Keith decides his logic is sound, but ignoring a _could-be-fatal-wound_ is as illogical as it was to submit himself to the want of sleep and let himself bleed out. So, with his eyes still closed, and hands limp as not to irritate his aching back any more than needed, Keith searched his body mentally, trying to rifle through all the pain and pick one that felt like the familiar " _stab wound"_ he was used to.  
The burning ghost of blade piercing skin drew him to his left thigh, and another moment or too granted him the relief knowing that the stickiness wasn't growing. The cut was clotting.

With great difficulty, Keith managed to force his eyes open again, not remembering when he's let them close. But like last time, it doesn't do him much good; the darkness still clouds around him. Its pitch black.

 _Not quite.  
_ A measly glimmer of light shone like filaments of gold from cracks in a space to the far right. It did little to fight the dark, but there was light, and when Keith was able to pull his body from this awkward slumped mess, he would have a goal. For now though—

The temptation was too much and Keith felt his eyes close once more. The heaviness inside his head faded a little, the pressure around him ebbing like air slowly leaking from a balloon. But the pain on his body was still too great to be ignored. Arms, legs, chest, feet, wrists, neck, head, toes, knees, fingers, stomach, back. Everything ached.  
Everything _hurt._

 _Come on Keith. You have to get up._ Keith heard his own voice berating him from somewhere in the part of his conscious that wasn't numbed by the ghost of concussion.  
 _You've got to get up.  
_ Laying around would invite danger. Laying around while bleeding out would invite enemies. He was practically handing them a gift-wrapped golden platter with his head on it. _Screw that._

Keith forced his eyes open again and trained to keep them that way. It made his head throb his eyelids fighting him every step of the way, but he would endure it.  
Slowly, after what seemed forever, the Galra could see some shadows hardening, some softer almost. Empty. Shapes began to form in the room, casting depth into Keith's dark world. He fought pain to sit himself up, cursing under his breath when he pushed off the weird shape that had been his leg rest, and now he's huffing and panting with his back leant against one of the three walls he can discern from the darkness. He's in a corridor.  
And everything was unfamiliar. At least Keith knew that much.

A groan somewhere in front of the boy made the Galra flinch from shock. Pain rocked through his body at the movement, but Keith forced himself to ignore it, lest he succumb to the swooning that took his vision and made the darkness twist.  
Instead, the boy shifted his weight to the right, away from the aching, so that his body was more comfortable and he could search for the source of the noise. It's the bulky shape that was supporting Keith's legs. _The Human.  
_ Who else would it be? Keith didn't escape Xardin with anyone else in tow, nor would any one else be his cellmate if they were to be captured – which was the probable outcome considering Keith hadn't been able to pilot the Red Lion from the ship and trying to escape with Voltron's Blue Paladin would cement suspicions that Xardin was telling the truth and their _Corrlux_ was the traitor.  
But then, where's the familiar battle-ship purple. And where's the energy cuffs. And why is Keith still wearing his armour?

So, not prisoners then. Does that mean they're still in the Red Lion?  
Which would explain the unfamiliar surroundings, but not much else because Keith isn't sure. He hasn't got anything to go on except for thoughts from a jumbled memory still trying to wade through the swamp of _post-unconscious-state._

The Human groaned again.

Slowly, and focusing on ignoring all the pain that he felt, Keith pushed his body further against the wall. He wanted to cry out, to swear, and to cuss, but Keith didn't have the energy. He just bit down on his lip, his tongue tasting the metallic taste of blood as his fangs drew fresh blood. The man didn't care. He was just trying to stay upright, his hand searching for his knife in case his fellow companion had more fight in him and decided killing off the Galra who had just saved his ass was more important that finding out where they were, if they were in danger, and what their plan next was—

Wait.  
 _What was Keith's plan?_

Whatever it was, Keith didn't have time to focus as the Human groaned yet again, and now he's starting to move, amidst several choice cusses. Or Keith presumes them to be cusses, going on the Human's tone, but not being anywhere but blank, in terms of knowing normal Terran-phrases, he's got little to compare it too.

"Damn it. Where the hell am I?"  
"In the Red Lion, presumably."

Keith's blasé comment wasn't the best approaches to mutual conversation, duly noted when the Human froze, precisely three ticks before he threw his body in the opposite direction and collided with the other wall. He hit it with force.  
"Ow."  
"Human meet wall. By the way, out is in that direction," Keith drawled, waving a hand in the direction of the receding line of light. He shouldn't've bothered really. He didn't see his own hand move in the darkness and there was no way this weaker, lesser-sighted Human could've seen it either.

"Who the fuck are you?" the Paladin growls, but his tone sounds more like ' _what are you?'_ He's all poison and spit, anger bristling upon his skin like it will scare Keith away or something. Nah, it just makes him smirk to himself. It's got nothing to do with the warmth coiling in his gut knowing that the Human isn't dead. Nope. _No chance._

"Apparently I'm the idiot that saved your ass. Be grateful," Keith growls. He never held himself as a diplomat, but anyone capable of _thought_ would know pissing off the other party wasn't anyway to breed peace. Neither was physical violence, considering their earlier spar aboard Keith's battleship. _No longer his, now he's abandoned the Empire._

"Fuck you," comes the reply. "You're that fucking Galra scum that took Red from us. And what now? Congrats, you've got yourself a Paladin." It's not just anger that rings clear in the Human's voice, but the shivering of fear; running unsettled beneath his mask like water beneath the frozen shells of ice-lakes.  
He felt more than he allowed himself to show; an odd notion to Keith who only knew anger, impatience and tiredness in all his years with his kin.  
Fear was beaten out of him when he was but a kit; he knew its weakness and wouldn't let it fool him into the frozen-fear that holds fast his fingers, so they can't reach his blade, his feet so that he can't retreat from danger, his mouth so that the beast will hear nothing when it kills him—

"If you want to torture me, you needn't bother. I won't say shit and no amount of pain will change that."

 _Commendable.  
_ _Stupid, but commendable._

"I'm not going to torture you, idiot," Keith hisses, the pain in his side suddenly tight. _Fuck, shit,_ he needs to stop the bleeding. "Yeah right," the darkness says. And okay, he might be an idiot but the Human isn't gullible enough to take Keith at his first word. Whatever. As long as he sits still while Keith searches for something to patch himself up.  
But moving stirs his companion, the creaking of his armour and the hiss of pain enough warning that the Galra is moving. The Human rears, fearing danger.

"Don't come near me," he snarls; a wild animal trapped with nothing more than its bark and bite to defend itself.  
Keith opts to ignore him. He focuses instead on aching limbs, the burning of his gut and the tear in his side, the steady sludge of clotting blood that drops from the gash in his armour to splatter on the metal floor. And _great, isn't that a wonderful image to stick in his head.  
_ Another splatter and Keith's stomach churns like it wants to join in.

"W-what are you doing? I said stay away from me!"

Keith does that thing where he ignores what doesn't need his attention. In this case, it's the Human, who won't be going anywhere in a while considering he was recently experiencing a case of unconsciousness, and he's probably bumped himself enough it'll be a while before he can fight his way to his feet and be any sort of _danger_ to the Galra that is _finally_ on his feet.  
Keith breathes through his nose only, teeth clamped firmly to stop any sound escaping. He's dizzy, he knows it. Even if all around him is nothing but black, he can see it swooning this way and that until it's all one tumbled mess of darkness. He's close to knocking himself out on the wall, but a second hand, previously putting pressure on the gash in his side saves him.  
 _It's all just one step at a time._

He makes it to the door.  
And the door opens.

One minute, Keith is stood at the opening mouth of the ancient Altean Beast, and the next, he's flat on his stomach, the breath punched out of his lungs following a hard shove from behind and the gracious arms of the floor that catches him when he falls. It catches his face, his arms, the brush of his fur dragging on sharp, unforgiving rocks that dig into his palms where they fly forward to save himself slamming into the earth. He's too slow to do much more than save his head from another bashing.  
But there's no pause for breath, no moment to spare when the Galra feels the fur on his neck stand on end and Keith's instincts scream for him to roll, narrowly avoiding the heavy weight of the Paladin that had lunged for him, his helmet held aloft as the sole weapon he chooses to strike Keith with.  
Or, would've, if the Galran Soldier hadn't dodged to the side in time.

Keith's on his feet, breathing hard, sweat on his brow as the heat of the planet consumes them both.  
They're on _Venris,_ stranded by the Red Lion that lies lifeless on her side, unable to stand from the crash that saw her level trees and mountains. To Keith, there is no doubt.  
If he had the chance to look, the Galran Soldier would've recognised the landscape and surrounding flora from several segment detail he used to skim through when the late hours got too boring for his forced sleep-cycle, and the boy had nothing better than to do than read through other planet's scientific discoveries – _the Galra were too busy conquering the known universe to do any scientific discoveries of their own._

 _Venris_ was a volatile, unstable planet. Her core, corrupt from over-mining of her natural resources had caused a shift in the chemical makeup of flora, turning them against one another just to survive. All around them, tall spires of purple flora stretched up, twisted under gnarled vines and the parasitic plants of luminous orange _Vartan_ bulbs, some already burst from the Red Lion's landing. Luckily the poisonous spores that would suffocate both Galra and Human alike had been swept away in the harsh wind, hot and humid, like a giant was breathing down their necks.  
But sightseeing was a leisure not granted to Keith, currently trying to evade from the Human who was deadest on murdering him. _Literally._

He's snarling, growling, cussing out Keith with every Terran term he can think of; his face contorted into a gruesome caricature of a man as he leaps from where Keith kicked him.  
 _Feral,_ the Galra thinks, because the boy surely looks as such, with the way he runs, topples onto all fours every time Keith swings, misses, swings again. The Human replies in kind, with blunted fingers scraping against the Galran's armour. If he had claws, he'd be deadly.

Keith knocks him back, a kick to his chest; but instead of falling, the boy uses the momentum to throw himself back up, fingers curling around loose scree that become projectiles that Keith is forced to bat away before they find their mark.  
The first cuts him above his eye. The second catches him off his forearm, but it doesn't break his skin. The third was easily caught, but that distraction cost him a blow to his chest, the Human tackling him where Keith had scrambled on the loose rocks to keep his footing. He squeezed, arms tangling around him, tighter and tighter.  
A spike of fear, foreign, unknown, surged in the soldier as pain coursed through his body, through the wound in his side, his spent muscles, body cracking when the Paladin flexed and began to _crush.  
_ Reports from Galra had rarely faced the Human's out of their war-machines. There was little known about their strength, their speed, their stamina, their ability to cast aside pain of the sake of self-preservation.  
And here, alone with no ally to side with him or save him, Keith would be just another victim as the Paladin's scoured the Universe for their remaining Lion, the inevitably the key for forming Voltron.

One blunted hand finds blood and Keith howls.  
He drops, the strength of the fight stolen when the Human strikes again, the gash on his side more of a weakness than he anticipated, the Human itself even more deadly now that it is cornered, alone, and not as injured as Keith had predicted. _The fool.  
_ And as he lays there, chest down, pinned beneath the one that will grant him death, the soldier wonders of the backwater planet in the system that no one dared to take a second look at. If they were this ruthless, this savage, enough to waken the Altean Beasts and command them through the stars, then perhaps there is hope of Zarkon's destruction.

 _Death doesn't come._

Instead, the weight of the Human shifts upon him.  
Keith turns his head, ears flicking to the new sounds that claws its way past deep panting and the sound of skittering rocks, sent dancing from where they had been kicked during a fruitless effort to throw he who holds on and won't let go.

Keith feels wet on the back of his neck. _Blood?  
_ More panting, coming sharp and quick, the phantom breeze of air ruffling the tips of his sweat-soaked fur, heavy on his neck and his body when he pulls and it won't listen, won't heed his demands—  
" _Move and I'll rip your throat out with my teeth_ ," comes the threat, growling and low. Yet the ferocity with which it is spoke was not as intense as the snapping jaws hounding at Keith's neck during their fight. When then it was sure-fire death if he got caught, now there was only a warning; doused in exhaustion, pulling the gruff bark into a weak threat that doesn't match the fire of the Blue Paladin.

Keith bows to the will of the Human. He does not move.  
Every fibre in his being screams at his decision, the predator inside him keening at the thought of bowing his head, revealing his neck to prey, yet Keith cannot—no _, does not_ move. It is a decision he makes, and one he stands by.

The Galra waits, thinking, ear flicking as he hears, more than sees, the movements of the Voltron Soldier, still astride his back, hands moving. One grips Keith's throat, but there's no power; only a firm grasp that warns him as much as the rasping voice, choking on the air that cannot quiet get into his lungs. _Are there still spores?_ Keith should mind he doesn't inhale any—

The Human moves again, a hand slamming into Keith's shoulder, but it doesn't feel like its mean to hurt him. More like…  
Keith can still feel his breath, ghosting on the back of his neck, upon his head, making his ears flick and twitch like they would against the midday sun. He _sounds_ tired, but letting himself pass into oblivion with a potential threat free to slip from his gasp is folly; Keith will have to be dragged down with him.

But the fingers, blunted, bleeding, hidden under thick-weave gloves of his Paladin armour, never turn inwards, never tighten around Keith's throat. He doesn't speak, doesn't spur the other to do anything other than try and catch his breath—

"You—" the boy says, voice shaky yet firm, trying to hide the irrefutable exhaustion that pulls at the both. "You didn't— We were fighting. And then we weren't." There isn't a question, per say, but there's room for Keith to speak and he takes it. "Xardin interrupted." His words hurt, pulled through a tight throat and tightening fingers.

"You could've killed me."  
"I didn't want to."

It was the truth. They could be allies; they were both fighting against the same enemy, both seeking to keep the Red Lion from Zarkon's grasp. But Keith doubted the four renegade Humans' capabilities. He still didn't trust them to be able to defeat Zarkon, but there was more chance than he presumed before dancing toe to toe with the Blue Soldier.

The Human's voice growls. "You could've killed me. _Why didn't you kill me?"  
_ He's fighting with what he knows, and what he knows shouldn't be. The one he fights is Galra. _He is the enemy.  
_ And yes, that was true, they'd even fought, back before the paws of the Red Lion on the battleship. But when another caught him by the throat and threw him, he had been vaguely aware that another protected him. Was it…. Had it been _this_ Galra. Had he stood against his kin, drawn blood and abuse… _For what? To save him?_

But no. That can't be.  
Because _he's Galra._

This is a trick, a ploy, some sort of trap that won't only hurt him, if not now, then later, when he lures in the team who search for their missing Paladin. And they'll come, of course they will. If not for the screw up that has abandoned himself in the Galra clutches, but for the Red Lion their supposed "paladin" failed to procure.  
And it would be Lance's fault when the team are captured, or killed, when they come.

Lance is too weak to fight the Galra now. And although he wants to, begging for the strength that will wind his fingers around the throat of the enemy, he can't. Not just for the weakness his birth bred him, but for the niggling that sits somewhere at the base of his neck; an odd twinge that won't let him completely abandon that thought that _he risked his life to save mine._

Keith refused to make a sound when the grip on his throat tightened. He felt like a kit, who was held by the scruff as the older ones yowled at him for disobeying, yet now holds the threat of death and not just a few lashes. So, he remained perfectly still, waiting for the Human to make his move; if he tried to kill Keith, then he'd fight back. Naturally.  
But if the Human wanted to talk—

"Don't come near me, or I really will kill you."  
It is all that is spoken before the Human relinquishes his grip. He stands and walks across the turned earth back to the Red Lion, disappearing inside her maw, without so much as a glance to the Galra he leaves on the rocks.

For first contact with Voltron, Keith didn't think it went too bad.


	4. Stranded

**FOUR**

There are two things that Keith detests in the universe above all others.  
The first and foremost being Emperor Zarkon and his legion of mindless drones, and their insatiable need to claim dominion over the Universe.  
The other was rain.

It made Keith's fur matted and heavy, and his ears never ceased their flicking to relieve the water droplets that poured from the tips, down his cheeks and jowls. Rain brought with it cold and wet, two things that didn't sit well with the Galra, staring out of his shelter at the downpour that seemed to laugh at him with its very existence. Keith ignored the taunting.  
He shook himself again, right the way down to his tail, water flying off in all directions as he pressed in closer to the wall of the cave; nothing vast, just a curved indent in weather-worn rock with enough room for Keith to sit and lie comfortably. Standing wasn't possible without ducking his head, but he was content with what shelter he had from the god-awful storm that filled the sky.

The squall had come not long since the Human and Galra parted ways; slow billowing clouds of pink and orange as the light of _Venris'_ star began it's decent beyond the jungle canopy. Now the sky was dark and ominous, the storm building with the wind.  
Keith had found the shelter quickly, for it stood not too far from where he and the Human fought, and in turn, not far from the Altean Beast that hadn't moved since Keith's waking. She had not spoken either, if speaking was the correct term for communicating telepathically with an ancient creation that was incapable of speech. But no matter, because it didn't change that the Red Lion remained quiet and dull.

The Human not as such.

Keith watched from his rock inlet, hidden from sight from a gracious sweeping of tangled roots and vines, dead from drying in _Venris'_ sun, as the Paladin ventured from his sanctity in the Red Lion. At first re simply walked around her, clambering slowly up to her head, over her body, slipping between the large components of her legs and her tail. But unbale to find anything he had been searching for, the Human slunk back to the lion's head, resting just inside her mouth, talking to her.  
The gentle thrum of the boy's voice was lost to the pattering of the rain, but Keith doubted the Human was saying any thing of considerable significance. After all, the lion couldn't talk back.  
Or maybe she could. The Human was a Paladin after all, and even if Keith had heard her song once…. He didn't know what it meant, and the odd flicker of thought that he could indeed pilot her was squashed before it could become a fully-fledged thought.

Movement drew the Galra's attention. In his thoughtfulness, he had missed the sight of the Human bidding the red lion a farewell, before picking his way through the tumbled rock of debris left in the quake of their landing. He was heading towards the— _No way, the Human wasn't going to go in the jungle—_ Oh fuck. Of course he is!  
Keith barely has a moment to pull himself from where he's crouched, limbs stiff and achy from doing so for so long, cursing the rain that targets him with malice and the Human that has now disappeared from his sight, having gone beyond the line of fallen trees.  
Doesn't the damn Human know, it's not just _Venris'_ flora that are toxic, but the few creatures that survive here are violent, territorial in nature and just as dangerous. And if the Human stumbles across a hunting path…

If Keith was thinking, he'd realise he was actually _worried_ for the weird, misshapen, fur-less _culm_ that thinks a leisurely stroll in the hazardous jungle is actually a good idea. Luckily for Keith, he's _not_ thinking, and that means he doesn't have a chance to rethink his own actions of noisily rushing after said idiot into "toxic dangerous jungle" that is full of things that wants to kill them both.

And, because Keith is the luckiest Galra in the universe, it's not long until he finds the Human, uneaten.  
 _Instead, he's in the process of._

It's a Treecreeper that has him; the weird, long necked, flippered creature that is slow on mutation for legs even though it's been living on land for the last thousand years since the evaporation of _Venris'_ Lakes. Instead of legs, the creature has developed weird vine feelers, one of which is currently wrapped tightly around the Human's ankle, dangling him upside-down, up in the air, high above Keith's head.

The Human is thrashing, screaming out profanities as if the Treecreeper might realise that eating the Terran would be rude, and that he'd put him down, apologise and be on his way.  
Naturally, the Treecreeper _does not_ release the Human, instead lifting him even higher so it can dangle him over its yawning mouth, preparing to drop him in and enjoy the morsel that has shifted up three pitches at the prospect of being eaten alive.

In all his thrashing and squirming, the Human spots Keith, standing quite small in the clearing near him, staring up with no clue how to help. "Help me!"  
 _Yeah, like Keith knows how._

But run forward he does anyway, charging into danger without a thought to anything as he draws his mediocre blade and slashes at the dried-mud shell and rock-hard skin of the Treecreeper's neck, exposed where it's looking up to catch its prey.  
The blade doesn't exactly _hurt_ the colossal beast, but it does pull its attention away from lunch to the pest that darts away from the grabbing of vine tentacles. Keith doesn't particularly feel like being an appetiser himself, and hacks at the springy limbs. There's too many to keep track of, but then Keith's not about to stand still and let himself be caught.  
As he dodges the vines, he darts back to the belly of the Treecreeper, ducking under an armpit that smells of mould and rotting fruit. But hey, he's in a blind spot and— _oh shit that damn thing is moving._

So as not to get crushed but the colossus' weight, Keith has no choice but to grab hold of the growth underneath the thing's flipper, hooking his feet along the thicker vines that aren't extension-able fingers – so to speak – and scrambling up on top, hands clawing for purchase on the grass that digs its roots between the creeper's scales.  
It's a hard task, with the making everything slippery, the grass weak enough to be pulled from its housing when Keith grabs hold of it in search of _something_ to help him remain on the creeper's back.

The feelers have backed off now, meaning there is less to contend with, but still the rain pours and still the Human screams, letting everything in a hundred-mile radius that he hasn't been eaten yet.  
But hey, feel free to come join in if you want a taste.

"Shut up will you, I'm coming!" Keith's up on the things back quickly, dodging larger trees that have taken root years ago, darting past saplings and parasitic growths that throw out their own thorny vines for a taste of Galran flesh.

"No, no, don't— _don't_ — Help me!" the Human screams again, Keith turning as the Treecreeper's long slimy tongue slithers out of it's putrid cave of saliva and fangs, wrapping around the boy's stomach. It doesn't even register the boy hitting it, or the way he tries and scratches at it with his blunt fingers in a desperate last ditch to do something before he's eaten.

The feeler on his leg is released.  
The boy drops.

 _Shit_.

By sheer luck, or some dumb miracle, the Human manages to latch itself around the creepers bottom fang. The tone of his scream changes, pitching, and Keith doesn't need to see the blood to know what's happened. Still, he's fighting for his life. "Its eye, its eye! Throw something in its eye!"

Which is easier said than done when Keith is on the things back and the Treecreeper isn't exactly looking his way and there's nothing at hand to throw— _but there is.  
_ Without thinking, because it's easier not to think, Keith catches sight of his target: four pooling black orbs imbedded into blistering scales above the creeper's jaw, hooking back his arm and releasing with all his might.

The piercing screech of the Treecreeper tells Keith his blade had found its mark.  
But such a wound causes the creature to panic, mind torn by pain as it thrashes against the new enemy that has blinded it.  
Its tail lashed at still-standing trees that stood around, shaking the _Vartan_ pods, but not enough to split them or break them from their stems. It's a blessing Keith doesn't think will last, his eyes already staring up to the canopy to the vast numbers of bulbous blooms waiting to burst, and fill their lungs with spores. Not even the Treecreeper was immune, but that didn't mean it would register the danger of the parasite that lurked above.

Mind elsewhere, Keith fell prey to a stray vine, lassoing around his wrist, another lashing around his ankle. He had nothing but his claws to free himself, it was slow going. And they needed to move before the creeper brought down the canopy.

In all the confusion, the Human is thrown to the ground, body crashing into the base of a broken trunk, dropping to remain near tumbled rocks and pooling rainwater. He doesn't make to stand.  
Keith holds on to the trunk of a sapling at the base of the Treecreeper's neck, vines slashed, his efforts in order to keep himself from being tossed aside before he can retrieve his blade. But that's easier said than done, with the creeper as frantic as the Human had been, pitiful shrieks echoing up into the emptiness of _Venris'_ skies, thunder replying in anger as the storm continues to swell.

The wound in Keith's side burns in agony, but he doesn't have time to care for a wound if it means abandoning his only weapon, ultimately leaving himself utterly defenceless against any other of _Venris'_ horrors that would hunt them before they could leave the planet.  
It is with sheer determination and anger for his own stupidity to throwing the blade, _and more anger for the Human_ _blindly wandering into a volatile and deadly jungle,_ that Keith climbs the beast's neck, using root and scale and rock to make it to the head, using his tail to balance himself as he holds on to the Creeper, swinging back and forth, in an attempt to dislodge the blade that blinds one eye.  
Keith claims his prize with another pitiful screech, but before he can make the decision to blind the beast completely, a feeler whips up, slamming into his chest, throwing him to the ground.

If only it was the ground he landed on.

Keith's screams filled the air along with the creature as he crashed into the razor rocks, feeling the crag cut his armour, ignoring fur as it dug deep into his skin.  
 _Not broken_ is all can he think when the pain clears and red drains from his vision, the Treecreeper already fleeing, knocking trees and boulders aside as it scrambles from the small creatures that hurt it. Keith looks up, eyes to the _Vartan_ in the canopy, eyes remaining transfixed on those that shake from where their tree has been struck.  
None fall. Another blessing.

Turning back to his leg, Keith peels back shattered armour shell to see the gash in his thigh. It's not as deep as he thought, neither is it as long, but there's still a lot of blood, but the rain is washing it away quicker than it can come to the surface. It's more like a training wound than any damning wound, but that doesn't mean it won't hurt like a bitch when it heals.  
The Human probably faired the same. Which brings Keith's attention back to the damsel in distress whom he had been trying to save from an early grave.

The Human lays unmoving amongst the rocks, body limp and twisted. Red seeped from a cut on his face, skin-deep, but enough that would need treating before infection could settle. Other than that, and the cracked armour over his chest, he was okay. Ignoring the fact that he's been knocked out cold.

The rain continues to fall, the thunder above cracking like a whip. It urges Keith to return back to the Red Lion, not just because he needs to tend to the idiotic Paladin, but of course because _he hates rain_.  
But when he moves beside him, crouching low, hands curling under the lithe body like he had merely hours before, something didn't quite feel right. It wasn't hard to lift the boy, nor jostle him to his head pillowed against Keith's chest rather than hanging lax in the air.

Keith's eyes catch sight of two blue smudges underneath the boy's eyes, one partially covered in mud.  
But… he was Human, wasn't he?  
Not… _Altean?_

The reports stated that only two survived Altea's destruction, one being Alfor's daughter, the Princess and her manservant. Was this him?  
Which would probably explain his ferocity and strength during battle, but there was little Keith could compare to knowledge with Humans or Alteans alike; his information short on both affairs. Afterall, the Princess and her servant were only recently acknowledged as the last Altean survivors and the Humans were just back water primates from the _Quar-Klux_ system.

Regardless, the Blue Paladin wasn't getting back to the Red Lion by himself and Keith needed to help him. Yet his eyes were continuously drawn to the markings on the boy's face. And his legs….  
Well, Keith was pretty sure the left one wasn't meant to bend like that. Or, it might've; the Galra wasn't totally sure on the biometrics of Humans— err, um, _Alteans_.  
But he was certain it _wasn't_ meant to swing like that…

 _Oh shit._

* * *

Pain.  
Pain, pain, pain, _pain, pain, pain—_

Lance wakes with a jerk, feeling warmth on his back but all his head screams is danger, the trees are trying to eat him, _he's in danger!_

"Woah, woah, stop struggling!"  
Lance doesn't listen, pain burning from the inside out. His head swims, his legs is lead and molten lava, fire and poison all at once. He screams.

"Calm down!" the voice says again, gruff, close to shouting, but Lance won't listen, he can't, his body's on fire.

 _Run.  
_ _Just run._

Lance can't run, he can't outrun the pain, the clawing fear that scrapes his throat and steals his air. He screams, his body screams and still there is no release. He barely registers what he's doing, feeling the jaws of the beast clamp tight on his leg, nothing but colour before his eyes; purple and red and black until all there is, is black and darkness and _nothing._

"Just— hold— _still_ ," the voice says again, dancing on the edge of understanding. But pain is Lance's only focus and he can't part from the poison in his veins. The jaws squeeze his legs tighter, Lance suffocating himself as he cries for it to stop, make it all stop, _make the pain stop—_

The pain stops.  
A second of movement, the grinding of bone on bone that won't give until it does and suddenly there's no pain. One moment and then another, but the pain isn't gone for long. It is a volcano under his skin, pooling, building, rising with the heat. The fire will burn him.  
Lance doesn't want it. He turns away, but there are the flames that lick upon his skin, gentle in nature but painful in heat and fire as it consumes him—

"Here, drink this." Something cool presses to his lips. Cool and warm and soft.  
Lance takes the liquid in his mouth, filling his throat, his lungs, his body. He drowns the fire, but not the pain, _but no, wait,_ that is fading too. Fading, as is Lance, who pulls colour from the darkness, looking up into the yellow eyes of the boy that cradles his head, light furred fingers caressing his brow. The light is fading fast, the pain relinquishing its hold on the boy's mind as quick as sleep hordes what it can.

And before Lance can fall asleep, he speaks.  
" _Thank you."_

.

* * *

In his dreams he hears singing:

 _Creeper, creeper in the trees,  
_ _Bow your head and hide in leaves._

Lance knows her voice, he's _sure_ he does, but grasping onto the memory is like holding mist in his palms; watching as it swirls and falls, vanishing into the air as if it was never there in the first place. But Lance is _sure_ he knows her voice.

 _Creeper, creeper can't see well,  
_ _So hush, be silent and all stand still._

He can feel her arms holding him, the dulcet of her voice warm against his ear as she rocks him, to and fro, the rhyme a simple child's song. But when she sings to him, it is the sweetest of lullabies that pulls him like the moon pulls the stars from hiding when night falls.

 _Creeper, creeper carries the trees,  
_ _He hides before you, dressed in green.  
_ _But creeper, creeper share your cloak,  
_ _And I will vanish just like smoke._

Her cloak isn't green, put the pale pink of the flowers that grow on his windowsill. He remembers searching through his drawers for the same colour, donning the white misshapen blanket over his head like a hood, the pink satin of the table runner around his body as he ran to her, into her arms, where she held him close.

Who… _who was she?_

* * *

When Lance wakes again, there is more understanding than pain. That isn't to say the pain is gone, but it is certainly lessened than the last time he woke to the burning in his mind. Now, the heat is but warmth, cooled enough that when the boy wakes, he has enough wit to not bolt up and warn whoever may be watching him that his prisoner is no longer unconscious.  
He keeps his eyes closed, focusing on listening; the soft sounds of his breathing carrying in the echoey quiet that rings with the steady dripping of rain. It is not hollow though, as it would sound if he were laid in the maw of Red. She hadn't opened her heart to him; the hollow of her chest and cockpit still barred until she grew in strength and granted him access. Only then could he get off this godforsaken planet and back to the others.

In all Lance's worrying and listening, he doesn't hear much more than himself and the storm outside of… _wherever he was_. He grants himself enough will to open his eyes, just enough that he can see nothing but rock. Or the rocky ceiling of a small, dry cave.  
A small dry cave in which Lance is alone.

The rain continues outside, it's incessant drumming sung like a lullaby. Lance always loved the rain, back at home, on Earth and the rare few chances when the team would find themselves in a summer downpour mid-mission or just while they were doing recon on unknown planets.  
Lance makes to sit, to watch the rain and let his mind draw comfort where he can. He pulls his leg closer, moving to roll— _fuck!_ Lance curses internally, a hiss all that he lets slip between bleeding lips, hands grabbing just above his left knee. A burning rocks his body, he can't tell why, there's no dampness of blood, so he's certain he hasn't been cut.  
But when Lance tries to move his leg again, there's the same burning and stiffness, still not as intense as before but enough that it brings on a wave of nausea. Worry had his hands caressing the area gently, fear holding his lungs hostage. The boy's fear was realised when he felt the jarred motion of a broken leg, underneath the scream when he pushed too hard, too much, _oh god I think I'm gonna faint.  
_ But no, no it could just be a dislocated knee, or maybe it's just really badly bruised. Whatever it was, Lance couldn't tell, mind fuzzy from pain and his near-miss with a coma. Which was better than being eaten by that weird leech, tree-monster thing.  
But how had he gotten away? Did he walk himself? Or was it the—?

Lance rolled, forgetting his leg in favour of double checking he was alone.  
He was.  
No Galra. _No one._

But that doesn't explain his predicament. Unless the cat thinks Lance can't move because his leg is incapacitated, and he's got him as an easy prisoner to torture for questions until the rest of the Galra come— _Yeah, fuck that._

Lance hissed to himself, shifting his body close to one side of the cave, catching his leg only once on the uneven ground. He screamed when the bone scraped bone, but he had no choice. He couldn't be a prisoner, he couldn't be a burden to the team, he couldn't be a liability—

"What are you doing?"

Lance panicked. There was nothing else that could be said, when he threw his body away from the source of the noise, the silhouette of his enemy that stood, drenched at the entrance to the cave.  
He felt nauseous, consciousness ebbing as the pain in his knee burned and burned, like someone drove a sword between sinew a flesh, the blade itself as hot as the fires from which it was forged.  
"Oi, oi calm down." The Galra's voice was there in his head but he couldn't make the connection, continuing his thrashing until a vice-like grip took his wrists, shaking him.  
"Stop it." _Anger.  
_ Lance kicked, something clicked and—

 _Oh god the pain!_

"Shut up, you'll draw the scavengers in," the Galra was saying, but he could've been singing in Olkarion for all the sense it made. Then Lance isn't screaming. There's something in his mouth, between his teeth, his jaw already clamping hard, his noise muffled by whatever gag the Galra is trying to force down his throat—  
"Calm down," the Galra says again, and this time, Lance can hear more than just words. His voice is stern, steady, but drenched in the sense of compassion and… _worry?  
_ It's confusing, Lance doesn't want to think about it. So he doesn't.  
He stares at his leg instead. It's… it's…

It's _not broken?_ When he moves it, it hurts, he won't lie, but there's no sickening feeling of bone grinding bone, no jarring the makes him want to throw up everything he's eaten since he was born.

"Idiot," the Galra curses, but the bite is empty of any real fire. He places a hand on Lance's knee, unsteady fingers holding his leg still before he can jerk it away. "You know, you could've waited until _after_ I returned with the _Soori_ before you decided to reset your leg yourself. It would have certainly made it less painful than what you just did."  
Lance glances up to him, and this time he's _almost_ _sure_ there is worry there, under his deep thick brooding scowl. "Might as well still eat, the pain is still going to bother you for a bit." Then he's up, moving away from Lance, leaving him with the weird, leathery... _Something_ between his teeth.  
On inspection it's a leaf. _Wait, did he say eat it?_

"So what? You make me eat this and it knocks me out, so you can keep me as your prisoner," Lance growls at the Galra's back as he fiddles with something on the other side of the cave. "If I wanted to knock you out, a blow to the head would do. Certainly less trouble than traipsing Creeper territory for _Soori_ leaves," he grumbles, without so much as a glance in the boy's direction.  
Lance doesn't believe him, but then, what's new? He's not going to eat the leaf and he's certainly not going to wait around so the damn cat can tie him up or kill him, whatever the damn thing prefers.

But the second that Lance tries to stand, his left leg buckles. He's not being discrete, because the _quiznaking_ cat frigging catches himself before he can brain himself on the cavern floor. And again, he's yelling at him. "What the hell are you doing? You can't walk yet so just sleep and rest. Be a hero tomorrow, or save it till next week, but don't do it with a busted leg!"  
"Fuck off," Lance growls. Because yeah, he's mature, who cares, he's not going to listen to the enemy placing pretend with him, just so he can get him to lower his guard.

 _Not happening._

* * *

Lance shivered faintly in his corner of the cave. He was on the far side, back pressed against the wall to give him support, his leg numbed by the cold as it splayed out in front of him, red and swollen. He'd stripped off his lower armaments to lessen the pressure, but the damn fool had neglected to keep them close. The damn cat had taken them from him, an excuse of _"you'll put it back on before your leg heals, so no, you're not getting it back."  
_ It was all fake concern and subtle plotting in attempts to lower Lance's guard. Maybe even friendly persuasion was a new tactic, but Lance wasn't going to fall for that. He was the Blue Paladin of Voltron for fucks sake. He wasn't going to bend under the hand of the Galra.

Lance shivered again. Nights on Venris were cold, despite it being a hot, muggy jungle planet and its closeness to its nearest star. _Uncomfortable.  
_ The numbness of the cold settled like a blanket over his body, but didn't take the pain and persistent sense of nausea.  
The food fetched by his prison warden was left uneaten, and he refused to allow himself to be carried to the small fire that crackled near the entrance to the cave. The Galra remained on guard, behind the light and steady flow of smoke, watching Lance as Lance watched him. He was smaller than any soldier he'd met before, his smallish ears twitching to the dancing of the embers' song. His tail flicked now and again, much like Terran cats, but there was no smile that pulled at Lance's lips, like that which he wore when he watched the cats chase the mice in the barn.

But unlike other Galra, this one was gentle. He had calmed Lance when the pain got too much, had chased away the thing in the trees that caught him and almost ate him, and would have done so, if the Galra hadn't risked his own neck to free the boy.

So maybe… could it be that—  
Lance wasn't sure. His head hurt, his body hurt, he was exhausted and cold and tired and…

The Galra was gentle.  
So Lance couldn't be.

As if thinking had called his attention, the Galra moved. Only to refuel the fire with dried roots, but it was enough for Lance to push himself against the wall, eyes fixed upon claw and blade.  
"You know I'm not going to kill you," he says, the fire planting false gold in his eyes. "If I wanted you dead, I wouldn't have saved you from the Treecreeper. Heck, I wouldn't have taken you from the ship, but here we are, and you're in no way harmed from me."  
Lance raised his voice to argue, but the Galra continued with a pointed look. "The injuries to your leg and your head are from your own recklessness. They're not my doing."

Lance couldn't say anything to that. He simply turned his head, but not far enough to blind himself to his enemy. He wasn't going to risk it.

"That… I mean…"  
The Galra hadn't finished though. He sounded meek, and when Lance's eyes fell upon him again, he even looked it, his ears pulled back, eyes turned to the fire as he occupied his hand by prodding at the flames with a half-charred stick. _He played pretend pretty well.  
_ The Galra's eyes don't stray too far. They fall back on the boy periodically, yellow orbs full of questions of his own, questions that Lance would answer if he didn't have his guard up, if he wasn't suspecting foul play. To not suspect it would be foolish.

"The creeper. You guessed didn't you. About its eye, I mean," the Galra said, a hand coming up to scratch beneath his ear. "That was just…" but he stops and doesn't say anymore, dismissing his thoughts to speculations.

" _Creeper, creeper, ghost in the trees,  
_ _Don't let him catch you, don't let him see."_

Lance clutched at his head, pain swelling in the front of his mind as the boy heard the voice again.  
 _Again?_ What does he mean, _again,_ it's just a voice in his head, it's just a—

" _Creeper, creeper, let me go,  
_ _Or in your eye a stone I'll throw."_

It's not just her voice anymore. He can hear others. Children.

And like a ghost of a dream, he can see them when he closes his eyes, remembering the children in the garden, chanting the 'Creeper's song' as they hid from one another, mother watching from the steps of the waterfall, waving back to Lance when he waved first. _But no, that's not Mama._

Lance's head throbs again, pain increasing, the burn hot on his brow. He's faintly aware of the Galra calling out to him, talking to him, there's weight on his hands that crush against his head, something hot on his cheeks—

" _Creeper, creeper in the trees,  
_ _Bow your head and hide in leaves.  
_ _Creeper, creeper can't see well,  
_ _So hush, be silent and all stand still."_

Without any warning, Lance fell into the worst panic attack of his life.

* * *

Keith turned his face from the fire, glancing over his shoulder to where the boy lays beside him, still asleep. He had scared Keith with the way his lungs fought their very role of breathing, with the way his eyes streamed with tears, the marks on his cheeks tinged with a glow long gone.  
He was Altean, there was no doubt in Keith's mind now, but that simply fact did nothing to change their predicament, except explain to Keith the utter hatred of the boy's demeanour and why he will irrefutably distrust him no matter what he offers or says or does. Clear in the fact that the food has been untouched, he refused to accept the moss stones for warmth and the stubbornness that kept him far from the fire's warmth.

Still, now he was unconscious and didn't have the chance to fight Keith, who had brought him closer, laid him on the soft bedding and would at least force feed him some berries come morning. The cave wasn't an ideal place to remain while the boy's leg rested, and Keith's cuts stopped burning, but the cave's entrance was smaller than the maw of the Red Lion, meaning there were less chances of being caught by scavengers and other unwanted predators.  
Even if the Galra came, they wouldn't be caught trapped in the Red Lion, although there was the risk of them losing their only escape route.

Keith glanced back to the Altean, something akin to concern growing in his stomach as he watched, watched from across the fire, the boy's head turning to the side, face scrunched in pain as he hovered between sleep and light dozing in attempts to keep his guard up. He was stubborn, impressively so, enough that it reminded Keith of himself. It irritated him.

The boy was strong, he had to be, as one of the remaining souls of his race, faced against someone who was his mortal enemy. It wasn't going to be easy to nature trust between them, and Keith's plans of proposing an alliance between himself and Voltron would've been hard to accept for Human, but for an Altean it was practically impossible. Not quite, but enough that Keith was going to have to reassess how his approach would be.

' _Soft'_ wasn't exactly in his vocabulary, nor was it a word that the Galran sought to teach unless it was the build up of torture to come. Sure, Keith wanted answers and he wanted compliance, but an alliance built in such a way wasn't an alliance at all. It would be just like Zarkon's approach for control, and he was someone Keith _never_ wanted to be like.

Still, when the boy woke, Keith knew the task of igniting trust was going to be a difficult task.  
He just didn't realise _how_ difficult.


	5. Memories

**FIVE**

When Lance wakes, he finds he's no longer in pain. But like last time, he is alone.  
Keith isn't here.

Keith. A very un-Galran name, one that Lance had actually _laughed_ at, despite being stared down with a glare and a flash of claws meant to intimidate Lance into silence. The knowledge of the Galra being the enemy stuck fast, and goading him into anger would remind Lance he wasn't to be trusted, keep him beyond the line, when everything becomes fuzzy and he's not sure—No. He's not going to let himself be fooled by the warm touches, the way the Galra had protected Lance from the creature in the trees, even from himself when panic struck and fingers clawed, nails sought soft flesh to tear and rip and bleed—  
He wasn't protecting Lance. He was protecting the answers the boy held in his mind.

To Keith, Lance was just a valuable prisoner that would secure his promotion in the ranks and get him on Zarkon's good side. Nothing more.

To Lance, Keith was just a means to an end, another to help him fight the monsters, but a monster himself when it came down to escaping this planet.

"Alive then?" came the condescending tone Lance hoped he'd never hear again. But there's Keith, with another bundle of dried roots and bark, a fistful of leaves and—  
"What the hell is that?" Lance said, poking his finger in the general direction of Keith's thigh, now firmly coated in the bluish, purple concoction of the weeping tree sap. "Oh my god, don't tell me that's your blood!" the boy hissed, unsure if he's disgusted or— _nope, nope, not concerned. Not. Concerned._

He pushed back against the cave wall, staring at the gash, or the supposed gash that was covered, the area coated much larger than Lance assumed necessary. Had he got himself injured _again?  
_ _Not. Concerned._

Keith just rolled his eyes, dropping the firewood near the embers. "It's not blood, its salve."  
"Doesn't look like medical salve," Lance bit, fear spiking. _Had Red opened up to him? Why? No, she couldn't have, he was Galra—  
_ "Cus it's not."

Keith doesn't know why he talks with the Human, or baiting him into petty arguments other than to pass the time. Although the benefits of such are outweighed by the irritation that rides up the Galra's spine every time this stupid furless alien keeps fighting his corner. Even when he's wrong.

"So what, you're saying you found some random flower, painted yourself with the pollen and hope to god that it's not poisonous. You're a bona fide moron." The boy's scowl quirks. "A moron with a mullet."  
"It's not a mullet," Keith growled, even though he's not sure if the length of his fur does qualify as a " _mullet_." All he knows is that damn word is an insult comparing the lengths of his fur and he's not going to let the Human call him as such.  
" _Culm."  
_ "Short-ass."  
"Cannon-fodder."  
"Zarkon's bitch."

Their petty argument continues on as such, dying out as Keith once again gets the fire going, his back to Lance, the only acknowledgement that the boy was there being the twitch of his ears and his tail that flipped side to side. Lance's mouth hiked up involuntarily, but he schooled it into a frown before the other could notice his amusement.  
It wasn't that he didn't want to offend the kitten by laughing at his tail, but too much taunting could land him with a knife in his shoulder, and that wasn't really in Lance's interests.  
He prefers the options of escape, but with his knee still cramping and painful, walking is slow and noisy. Keith was right in thinking that the Paladin would have a hard time escaping him if he tried. That didn't mean Lance _hadn't_ tried. The last time, he was beside the Red Lion when Keith appeared, seemingly out of nowhere and prodded and poked until Lance begrudgingly retreated to the cave to rethink his plan. Not an hour later he was caught just outside the cave, leaning on the rock wall when Keith returned with what he called "edible plants."  
Lance refused to eat, _naturally_ , ignoring the protesting of his stomach even now as he sat up in the cave, pressed against the far side while Keith sat opposite, roasting some gutter rat pierced on a stick. _Lunch,_ he called it. _How delicious._

"You know I'm not going to eat that," Lance says before he can think. He'd been hoping to blend into the background, wait for Keith to lower his guard then maybe jump him for the small dagger that remains concealed in the sheath on his back. But opening his mouth ruined that plan, the Galra's yellow eyes fixing Lance's from across the small, flickering fire. He raises an eyebrow.  
"There is _no way_ for me to poison this. Are you seriously going to starve yourself through sheer stubbornness?"  
"Don't care, I'm not eating," Lance bites, childishly poking his tongue out. Keith's eyes widen, straightening where he sits, but the motion is gone as quick as it came, and he's back to busying himself, trying not to char the rat on the stick.  
The boy doesn't miss the inconsistent glances.

True to his word, Lance doesn't eat. Neither does he drink what Keith offers: rainwater collected in a large, palm-like leaf. Instead Lance hobbles to the cave entrance and catches his own in his hands, deciding to fill himself up on the gift of the second downpour of that day, rather than consuming anything the Galra offered.

When the storm clouds clear, Keith says he's going out again; scouting for a vantage point or any sign of… _well_ , he said he wanted to find a way off the planet, and apparently taking regular hikes off to who-knows-where will do something for him. He's probably looking for other fallen craft or an outreach station for scientists and explorers and such, but what with the very nature of the planet, Lance doesn't think it will amount to anything.  
Still, he won't stop him. Not if it gives him distance between himself and his prison warden. Yet plans to grab Red and run are somewhat foiled when Keith turns back, ten paces from the mouth of the cave. "If you get the Red Lion up and okay to fly, that's all well and good, just don't leave me here. It's the least you can do in return for me for saving you from that Treecreeper."

And isn't that just a kick in the teeth.  
Because there's no way Lance can leave him here now. Because… _Because…_

"Yeah, well I say fuck him!" Lance yells, fist pounding Red's immobile form in anger. He's with her now, having managed to get to her quicker than last time, his leg only giving out twice and only screaming three cuss words that would have Mama washing his mouth out for months.

"I mean, _yeah fine,_ he saved me," Lance growled, slumping against Red, in the shade she provided from the heat of the sun. "But he's also Galra. And they're meant to be the enemy. Because, okay I get the whole " _two sides to every story nonsense,"_ but Zarkon's side is outright enslavement and domination while Allura just wants to free everyone and stop him. And yeah, revenge might be there somewhere, buried under all her righteousness and beauty, but I don't think I'm in the wrong for not trusting him. He's _Galra,_ for fucks sake."  
Lance kicks the stones beneath him, trying not to dwell on a voice that chides his childish nonsense. He's talking about Keith like he's his nemesis or something when all that stands between them is the colour of their skin and the fact that he's got a tail. Okay, so not the tail, that's actually pretty cool, _but that's besides the point._

"You get it, don't you Red? He and his kind turned on Altea. It was his Emperor that slayed your pilot, Alfor. He's Allura's father," Lance said, trying to ignore the bubbling thought that whispered deep inside him. _And my King.  
_ But no, because Lance had crushed any ideas that he wasn't his Mama's _fallen star._ He was her son, neither mind the markings that told him otherwise, the familiarity to Coran and Allura, even if he hid what he refused to show. Even if he demanded ignorance to the markings that branded his entire life nothing but a lie. He was Human, he was Human, _he was—_

"He's Galra. He can't be trusted."  
Red remains stoically silent. Lance nods to himself. "Yeah, I'm glad we agreed. Good chat Red."  
He pats her jaw, pushing off so he can slip back into her mouth and continue playing knock knock on her inner hull, hoping he can gain access, or at least annoy her enough she can wake up. As long as he knows she's okay.

By the time the sun is setting, Lance is back to talking to himself, having been unable to stir Red from her slumber. He's sat on Red's head now, having challenged his still healing leg to help him clamber up to her ear so he can watch the sky ignite in orange and delay the time before he has to return to the cave. It's not like he _has_ to, but there's something unspoken between himself and the Galra that has Lance thinking that he will actually go back when the stars come out.  
Keith's already in there, some weird-ass lizard spit roasted already from where he's too pro-active in all this survival nonsense. Maybe it's a Galra thing. Maybe Zarkon sends them on really hard summer camps where they have to live in dangerous wilderness for a month before they can graduate from evil-school. "Guess I should be thankful, if not I'd be eating rocks until the others came."  
"Can Alteans eat rocks?"

And there, staring up at him, ruining the moment, is none other than Lance's cave-mate.  
"What the hell are you talking about?" Lance spits, fake anger tickling the nape of his neck. Keith just shrugs like it was a perfectly understandable question. Instead of answering, he jerks a hand back to the rock face. "Are you going to eat this time, or…"  
"Nah, can't give you the chance to slip something in my food," Lance says, all animosity gone when he grins. Keith scowls. "Suit yourself." He turns on his heel, already walking away. Lucky for Lance he doesn't go far. Because Lance is an idiot. A bona fide idiot who completely forgets about his up-until-recently dislocated knee and how he's still stiff and how jumping off of Red's head from this height would seriously hurt him.

But Lance doesn't think.

Because Lance is an idiot.

* * *

"Are you _actively_ trying to kill yourself, or are you just this stupid?" Keith snaps, kicking Lance as he passes, ignoring the groan he receives because his foot caught Lance's right foot. His _right_ foot that he landed on awkwardly when Keith had tried to catch him but hadn't been able to support his entire weight. Lance's left knee was safe, but his right ankle hurt like a bitch. Still, only twisted. Not broken and not dislocated.

"You know, we didn't talk about this, but I thought we came to the mutual agreement that _I_ do the dumb dangerous stuff like traipsing through Treecreeper territory while _you_ just stay behind and try and get your Lion to wake up," Keith growls, his hands joining in the lecture as he points and prods and flicks embers in Lance's direction when he has the gall to ignore him.  
"And yeah, I get it, me Galra, you Altean, not friends."  
Lance sniggers, not really listening, unable to stop himself mouthing ' _me Jane, you Tarzan"_ while the idiot prattled on. "But we're stuck on a planet where everything is trying to kill us, no communicator, no working escape ship and no working defence systems other than my blade and your sharp tongue." He grins then, like he's knocked Lance down a peg or two.

Before Lance can reply, Keith continues. "So yeah, we're not friends and we're for sure not allies. But isn't it logical to at least work together to survive until we can go our separate ways? You do want to get back to Voltron, don't you?" It's a stupid question. Stupid and simple, but it stuns Lance into silence.  
Until, "yeah I do. But what guarantee do I have that you're not just waiting for me to agree, to lower my guard and slit my throat while I sleep." It's kind of unfair to point out, considering that Keith has done nothing but _help,_ even on the battleship, which is something Lance is conflicted about and it's confusing, so the stubborn idiot inside him has been purposefully ignoring it.

Yet the Galra doesn't seem offended. Maybe irritated, but that's a stereotypical look for him, even as he sits, cross legged, tail flicking behind him, thinking. Or brooding.  
Yeah, Keith is definitely a brooder, what with his 80s mullet, fluffy ears and thick eyebrows.

Then all of a sudden "alright _fine,_ you don't trust me, no matter how many times I save your life or try and feed you scavengers or berries or whatever. I get it, that's not what you want. But I'm not your enemy. Never was. Never will be." He stands, as much as the cave will let him, moving to Lance who draws his limbs in on instinct, eyes flashing when Keith's hand moves to his sheath, the blade glinting in the light, ready to strike—

"Here."

Keith doesn't strike. He's holding out his dagger; his only weapon held out for Lance to take.  
And he does, slowly, waiting for the attack that never comes, even after Keith has left his side and sits by the fire, digging into the lizard leg he's already cut off the main roast, skinned and done whatever to, to make it edible.

Lance turns the knife over in his hands, catching the reflection of his own shocked face, spinning the metal to reflect the fire light, and again until he's staring back in his own eyes. His head isn't working. It couldn't be, because he's saying words, he isn't even sure are his. "You're not actually trying to hurt me?"  
Keith snorts. "No. Like I been saying, the only enemy here is yourself," he says, gesturing to Lance's head, knee and ankle. "You're the only one beating yourself up and jumping into Treecreeper territory, _Mr. Blue Paladin."_

The silence hangs thick between them.  
For the last few days they'd been stuck together, all there was, was anger, wariness, irritation and annoyance. Nothing more. But now, when there is no fire between them, no ghosting rage, no want for revenge for a people that aren't his, no desire to kill his enemy and be done with it… Lance was at a loss. He wanted to hate Keith. He wanted to hate him because he's Galra, he's the enemy, he's just trying to use Lance, to make him lower his guard, to make him…

"But you're Galra," he says, voice too-soft and too-frightened to be his.  
Keith doesn't raise his head. "Just because I _am_ Galra doesn't mean I'm _with_ the Galra. They're all Zarkon's mindless puppets. I don't believe his ideals nor do I follow them."  
"But you were on the ship. He called you…. You were in charge of him, the one that you were fighting," Lance says, acknowledging the thoughts that fuelled his nightmares of not being rescued, or the fear that very same Galra who tried to kill him would come to _Venris_ and try to kill him again.

"Pretending to serve him was the only peace I got," the other says, his tone clipped but broken, like he's trying not to show how shattered his will really is. "When I fought back, as a kit, they'd beat me and tease me and brand me "defective." I was teased anyway because I never really grew like everyone else. Under Zarkon's rule, only the strong were respected," he says, cold laughter bubbling throw pursed lips. "It didn't matter that I could think for myself, didn't matter that I knew what they were doing was wrong."

"Fighting openly got me nowhere. Trying to get in contact with the Marmora failed too, so I had to rely on my own strengths. But I wasn't strong."  
The Galra continues, his pace quickening, anger tearing his throat into snarls and growls, enough that Lance's hand curls on the hilt of the dagger, fearing he'll actually have to defend himself. He doesn't want to, not really. He wants Keith's words to be true, that he's _not_ with the Galra, that he could be an ally—

"I had to steal strength from Zarkon, to pretend _I agreed_ , to pretend that I understood, just so they'd give me a ship and give me freedom from that _goddamn planet._ " He throws the lizard's legs into the flames, the embers sparking in protest. He turns, voice tight, rage roaring like an inferno, eyes catching Lance's wide with fear—

Keith stops. He stares, caught between fearful gaze and his own dagger held between them.  
One heartbeat, two heartbeats and another before he settles himself back down by the fire. "Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. I've never spoken about it to anyone before, so I guess all my anger came out at once. Sorry," he says again, moving back to the lizard, tearing off another leg with just his claws.  
"So yeah. Galran, but not with them."

Keith points with the bone in his hand, gesturing back to his dagger. "Now you're armed and I'm not."  
And with his voice soft, "just don't lose it, okay? It's important to me."

Silence returns to their small, fire-lit cave, but it doesn't feel as heavy as before. Not to Lance at least, who can't decide whether or not he's going to stare at the blade, or at the Galra that gave it to him. In the end it's his stomach that decides for him, and with little care for grace, crawls closer to the fire, carving himself one leg before deliberately setting the dagger between them.  
Keith eyes it, but makes no movement to take it. Not when Lance takes a bite out the meat, scrunching up his face from the texture of stringy meat. "Gross," he hisses, already trying to pick out the sinew between his teeth. Keith grins. "Should've tried the gutter rat. It was better than this."  
"I doubt that. Anything with the word ' _gutter'_ or ' _rat'_ already means it will taste bad."

The two of them talk. It's strained to begin with, like small talk, but smaller and with huge yawning abysses of silence, that could have Lance drilling screws into his head just to escape the awkwardness. It's in his desperation that he doesn't think. He'll blame not-thinking anyway, because if he _had_ been thinking, then Lance wouldn't have picked up Keith's dagger, asking the other why it's so important to him.

The Galra watched, sad eyes, his ears dropped. "I think… I think it was my mother's. It's the only momentum I have of family."  
 _Stop,_ Lance's head screams, but he's staring at this stranger beside him. Once he thought him a fierce beast, but now he is nothing but a boy, just Lance's age, caught up in an adult's war. And call it what one will, but Lance calls it a hero's heart when he sees someone hurting, in need of help, and there he is to be that ear, that shoulder, or sword and shield.  
But whatever inspiring speech Lance and his sharp tongue can come up with, Keith diverts. "Do you have one? A treasure from your home?"

 _Ah. Home._

Lance just smiles. "No. I didn't really get the chance to grab anything. It was just me and Hunk and Pidge, _the other Paladins,"_ he explains when he sees Keith's confusion. He still looks sad; something that doesn't suit him, leaving Lance no choice but to cheer him up. Or distract him. Because Keith chose to divert.

"So yeah, nothing but the clothes on my back. Pidge was luckier, she had her own laptop and all her files, so there's a bunch of photos of Earth. Hunk even had some of his backed up, because this one time he dropped his memory core in his coffee. Oh, you should've seen the big guy, he was so upset. And Pidge, even though she was acting all cold and aloof did her best to recover what she could.  
"Shiro got it worse off though. I mean, he had been gone a whole year and he barely had a day back on Earth, no chance to tell his family he was still alive, and then all of a sudden he's back in space, fighting in a war none of us knew about."

"I think they're my both like my memento, if that makes any sense. Like, we're fighting for peace so we can, one day, all go home." Keith blinks; the same cloud of confusion as before, mixed with a strange sense of sadness that feels too much like pity for Lance's liking. "What do you mean? I thought the Paladins were Human."  
Which… _is a really odd thing to say._ Lance doesn't make to hide his own confusion, food forgotten as he speaks. "Well, _yeah._ We all are."

"But you're Altean."

 _But you're…_

"What?"  
Whatever Keith was expecting, he probably wasn't expecting Lance to react like he'd just stabbed him, pushing back from the fire, claiming distance but forgetting the knife that could defend against the one that pulls accusations from thin air, turning on him the moment his walls were down, the moment he thought he could consider him an ally, the moment that—

"I'm Human," he hissed, like being anything but was a curse. "I'm not— I'm not—" but he can't get the words out, his mind blank, just the deafening echo of Keith's claim ringing true; _No it's not true, it's not true none of it is true._

"I'm Human," he yells, voice growing in volume but losing tenacity to the true meaning. He's known it, deep down, knows this lie he had wrapped around himself is nothing but the whim of a child that thinks if it believes enough, then magic _is_ real, that monsters _do_ live under the bed, _that he is really Human._

"I am Human," Lance shouts, his stubbornness not allowing him to think anything else.

Keith was quick to overcome his shock at the Paladin's outburst, rounding on him, yet remaining where he was sat in order not to turn their argument physical. "But the markings on your face are a trait _only_ held by Alteans. Humans look like them, we know that, studies were carried out on all three captured from the _Quar-Klux_ system a deca-phoeb ago. Your Black Paladin doesn't have marks—"  
"Because he's Human too—"  
"Then what about you?"

Keith is shouting too, now, his patience for civil discussion quick to be abandoned, as if yelling loudly enough might make the boy see reason and that, in truth, he wasn't what he thought he was. If he thought lying to Keith would change their approach, then it wouldn't. He had saved the boy before he knew he was Altean and denying as such wouldn't change that.  
Perhaps he couldn't retreat from the fear of the pair of them being mortal enemies, considering it had been another Galra that lead the destruction of his homeworld. But denying his heritage was _absurd._

"Why lie? It won't change anything?" Keith yells, still yet to control his temper. "You're still a Paladin, being Human or Altean won't change how much the Galra want to hunt you down and kill you, so—"  
"No, no no no! I. AM. HUMAN!"

Lance lunges forward, without thought, his only want to stop the words that dug deeper than the claws of the Creepers in the jungle. He had never let the team know that he wasn't like them, that he didn't have a homeworld, a _real family_ because his were all dead, killed, _lost to the stars when the Galra came and decimated his Home._

He couldn't let it be true. He couldn't admit the truth.  
If he did, then Lance wouldn't have a family anymore, he wouldn't have his friends who had lied to, he wouldn't even have the kin of Allura and Coran who wouldn't bear to be near another of their kind that had abandoned Altea and Space for the sake of peace on Earth.

The only reason Lance gets a good hit first is because of the shallow ceiling and their already-close capacity. His fist hits Keith's gut, the opposite side to the wound inflicted by his sub-commander, but before he has time to raise his guard, Keith curses him out with an elbow to his face. Nothing breaks, but _fuck_ it hurts, Lance's eyes watering as he pushes to stand, forgets about the low ceiling and has to duck again because Keith aims a fist for his face. It's not there anymore, but there's something about Galra and vengeance and anger that sees the short mullet-baring dick tackling Lance.  
They roll, cartoon-style, right out the cave's mouth onto the ledge created by Red's crash landing. In her shadow they fight, as they had back on the battleship, both ignoring their own wounds as they cuss one another out. Lance grabs a rock from near his foot and launches it at the Galra's face. It glances off his arm — raised in defence, but dishing out enough damage that Keith's scowl turns into a full-on murderous glare.

"What the hell is wrong with you? Just because I didn't fall for your pathetic lies, you're trying to kill me. I thought we were past this?"  
"Past what?" Lance yells, jumping back from a leg swipe, ignoring his knee that groans at him, but adrenaline numbs whatever pain might be felt as he faces the only one who knows his secret. _He can't know, no one can know._

" _It'll be our little secret, Aerllons. You can't let the others know, okay?"  
_ " _Okay, it's our secret."  
_ He sees her face, the light of morning sun haloing her head, her beauty infinite and immeasurable, she, his angel, always there to hold him when he cries, to take his pain when he hurts.

Keith doesn't see his opponent had stalled, doesn't notice the faraway gaze his eyes hold as he falls into memories. It's only when the fist connects to jaw with no resistance does Keith realise his mistake, scrambling to catch the other before he can crumple to the floor, voice pulled taut as he mumbles low, over and over.  
" _I'm sorry Mother, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, I'm sorry—"_ over and over again like a mantra.

"Lance. Lance, come on," Keith growls, tired all of sudden from the absence of adrenaline. He feels warmth on his cheek, fearing blood, but his hand comes away clean and dry. The warmth remains; melancholic and fearful, but familiar.  
" _I'm sorry, I'm sorry,"_ Lance says, losing himself to his mind, the darkness on his ankles pulling him under, away from hard rock and cradling arms to soft sheets and the faint smell of flowery perfume she always wore.

" _Another nightmare?"_ It's Mother, sat on the edge of the bed in which he lies, a soft touch on his face, caressing his cheek in spiralling patterns that tickles as much as it comforts him, his eyes beginning to dry. _"No, I didn't,"_ Lance hears, his mouth moving but the voice that speaks isn't his own. Maybe once it was, like it always was in his dreams.  
They're always like this, always have been since he was a child, even when his mind showed him Mama in the place of the pale-haired lady. Memories distorted by dreams and time, but memories nonetheless.

Lance's mind was a rabbit hole and he, Alice, falling deeper and deeper until the call of Keith's voice was nothing to his ears, filled instead with the sound of his long-abandoned childhood upon a planet he had discarded from his mind.

And as all things come to an end, so does Lance's will to hold back the tide. The waves wash over him pulling him down deeper, like a stranger in another's body as he sees others that he called family, knowing their faces but not their names as the man they all Father lifts him high in the air. " _My Aerllons, you've grown since I last saw you."  
_ And Lance, in the child's body, crosses his arms and pouts his lips. " _Father, you saw me this morning. And you promised you'd take me with you today."  
_ " _Ah, I did indeed. But your Father had a busy day today. Perhaps tomorrow."  
_ " _You always say that."_

Lance remembers running, chasing his friends through the meadows, through the courtyards, through the woods where they'd scramble up the trees, chanting out the Creeper song:

" _Creeper, creeper, ghost in the trees,  
_ _Don't let him catch you, don't let him see."_

He can hear them teasing him, laughing when Lance chases behind.

" _Creeper, creeper, let me go,  
_ _Or in your eye a stone I'll throw."_

It's how he knew the Treecreeper's weakness. It was how, even in the moment of panic, his mind had delved deep into memories and found the connection between the terror that held him above its jaws and the terror that plagued him night after night until Mother had told him that the Creeper's were gone, they were nothing but tales to scare children into being good. And Lance, her son—

No. Not Lance.

 _Aerllons._

That was his name, to which she called him, when he needed to return home for dinner, or she sought after him and he, who hid in the garden, or when he rebelled against their decisions that night was for him to be with his family, not friends, and he'd ignored both Mother and Father and climbed from the balcony.  
He had received a scolding like no other when the four of them traipsed home, cold and wet but very-much amused with themselves. It was all a game to them, still children in body and soul.

This was Aerllons'…. No, Lance's childhood, all those years ago, when Altea thrived and he was one of her people, living in blissful peace.

This was his, when he was Aerllons.

* * *

When Keith woke up for the third time, he was met with the pleasant subtle buzz upon his thigh, telling him that the sap he had found was indeed helping him, and not poisonous like Lance suspected.  
Keith wasn't happy when he woke to find that he is gone.

" _Quiznak!_ Of course, he's going to run off the second I let my guard down! _What were you thinking Keith_?" the Galra growls, berating himself as he rushes out the cave, towards the narrow ledge that leads towards the Red Lion. It's the only place the Paladin would go; to escape the planet and return to his comrades. But with a broken leg and no energy, Keith had his doubts that the idiot would get far.

Lance isn't with Red.  
He's not on the rock ledge and he's not near the cliff at all. Which leaves the jungle, and miles of Treecreeper territory between here and any other sanctuary the boy might stumble upon. If he doesn't stumble upon scavengers, razors or another predator first.

Cussing out every swear word he knows, and some he makes up, Keith takes off after the Blue Paladin, determined to kill him first.


	6. Family

**SIX**

Pidge let her hand slide down her face, trying to dry-wash away the exhaustion and brewing irritation that they had failed in the mission. Again.

The team had spent countless Quintant tracking the small fleet, only three battleships strong, with the decisive notion that it was _this one_ that was harbouring the Red Lion and their final piece to acquiring the Universe's strongest weapon.  
But as with every recent encounter with the Galra, the damn fleet split up, leaving half to battle Voltron while the rest recouped with larger numbers, making it harder to mount a second attack when they returned with an entire armada.

Shiro had been the one to call retreat; after seeing Blue hurtling towards them, Lance unresponsive on the comms, which only heightened everyone's fear that something was wrong. Maybe Blue had taken a bad hit and her transmitter was damaged, effectively silencing the Blue Paladin from the team; something that could be damaging for any one of them if he got separated and needed their help.

So yeah, Voltron pulled back and the Galra fleet have escape to the next star system, probably bolstering their numbers with another patrol fleet or regrouping with a base on some planet that have yet to be liberated by Voltron.  
 _Whatever_. The only certainty was that their next mission was going to be much harder. _Fucks sake._

Hunk is the last to land in the hangar, but he's the first out, rushing to Blue's feet, waiting for Lance. Of course the big guy got worried about his best friend's silence. No doubt his head had betrayed him and planted little thoughts of _"Lance injured,"_ or _"Lance unconscious,"_ or _"Lance badly hurt…"_

"Lance?"

Shiro and Pidge are beside Hunk now, waiting on Lance so they can all convene in the lounge, or maybe the Bridge once they've changed and had a shower.  
They could catch their breaths before they debriefed as they analyse their recent failure, before moving on, and begin to make steps towards their next plan of action. Red is still their goal, that hasn't changed, but with the window of opportunity closing, and closing fast, they're going to have to come up with a kick-ass strategy that really kicks ass.

Blue remains still.  
Her jaw stay shut, her body risen up with no sign that she'll bow to help her Cub leave, no sign of the Blue Paladin who comes out with a sheepish smile, a small apology and a vow to beat the Galra next time.  
 _They'll get Red next time._

But Lance doesn't appear.

"L-Lance?"  
 _Maybe he was injured. Maybe he was unconscious, and that was why he didn't reply to his Comms. Maybe it wasn't Blue that was badly hurt, but her pilot, and that was why he wasn't joining them—_

"Lance!"

The others take too long in sharing worried looks, leaving it up to Pidge to cuss them out and rush over to Blue. She doesn't even get the chance to knock on her chest before Blue bows quickly, a faint sad rumble in her chest that tightens Pidge's own. She can't ignore Blue's fear as she climbs in, rushing through Blue's heart towards the cockpit.

The _empty_ cockpit.

 _Lance isn't here._

* * *

"Pidge? Pidge come back— Pidge, dammit I know you can hear me!" Hunk begins to jog to keep up with the younger's shorter legs.

Pidge doesn't let up and remains unrelenting in her quick-pace, marching away from the Bridge for the hundred-something time since discovering Lance was missing.  
At first it was confusion: _where had he gone, where was he now, who took him, how come Blue came back alone?  
_ Then it was denial, albeit a short moment of hot-molten denial, that no, Lance wasn't missing, it was a joke. There was at least ten minutes of Pidge searching the entire Lion for her hiding brother, then another half an hour of searching the castle because she refused to believe it was anything but a prank, _nothing but a stupid damn joke—_

Then came realisation and understanding.  
Because no matter how stupid, immature and bratty Lance would pretend to be, he wouldn't ever do something as dumb as this, not faking his own capture, right when they were on the verge of taking back the Red Lion.

No one knew what had happened. They all had questions, but no one had they answers.  
All they were left with were the speculations that Lance was aboard the Galra ship, either a prisoner or a stowaway, trying to learn of Red's location or still desperately fighting, trying to get her back. Whatever the answer, it didn't change the fact that Lance was in danger, that he was too far away from the team for the internal comms system for his helmet to function, and he was ultimately alone in enemy territory while the team just…. _Did nothing._

They had _done nothing.  
_ All except Pidge, who screamed bloody murder when no one was too keen to go chasing after Lance to pull him from the clutches of the beast. Even if Allura stated Lance must've known what he was doing, even if Shiro said it was dangerous for them all to move without a plan, even if Coran stood there _like a fucking brick wall and said nothing._

"Pidge, come on, calm down," Hunk calls again, still trying to keep up with her.  
"No, NO! Don't you _dare_ tell me to _calm down_ ," the Gremlin all but shrieks, turning on the ball of her heel to face the older Paladin, a finger in his face, because it was better just a rude little finger than a balled-up fist and all her fury twisted between her fingers.  
Hunk didn't really deserve to be hit. Still, she wanted to punch _someone_.

"It's the same thing. Every. Damn. Time. All I want to do is start with us making plans, Hunk. Shiro said he didn't want to make a move with us all without our heads and I agreed to him, but it's been days and _nothing.  
_ "Every time you all want to talk, it's not about Lance or trying to bring him back. Because we have to bring him back. You used to be on my side—"  
"I _am_ on your side—"

" _Oh really,"_ Pidge huffs. "Then why the hell am I the only one that keeps bringing up the fact that Lance is _missing,_ and all anyone else cares about is making plans to go and search for the _fifth fucking lion?"  
_ "Because Shiro knows that Lance is also looking for Red. He wouldn't trap himself on a Galra ship without a plan—"  
"He wouldn't trap himself to begin with. He's not that stupid!" Pidge yells, barely keeping her fists by her sides.

"I know what Shiro says, that Lance is working under his orders because he told Lance to retrieve Red, but there wasn't anything in Shiro's instructions that told Lance to risk his life for her." Hunk raises an eyebrow. "We're fighting a war Pidge, we're all risking our lives."  
"Yeah, but we're not being stupid when we do it. And like I said, Lance isn't that stupid to put us all in danger, to put Blue in danger by making her fly back by herself if he had the conscious choice _not_ to."

Hunk has nothing to say, so Pidge leaves him there, looking at his feet rather than looking for their missing brother. _Why the fuck didn't they care? Lance ALWAYS cared about everyone else.  
_ And no, it's not Pidge being childish, bratty or whatever as she rushes to the nearest room, the door locked the second it slid shut. She slides down the door, hitting the floor with a thud, tears creeping to the corner of her eyes…  
She'd run straight to Lance's room.

Lance. Lance. _Lance, Lance, Lance-  
_ There was no use trying to stop the tears now, so she didn't bother. Not when the emptiness of the room hit her with the full force of a battleship.  
This wasn't the first time she'd sought shelter here, but it was the first time Lance hadn't been sitting on his bed, strumming his guitar, with a space next to him, as if he'd been waiting for her to join him.  
He was waiting for her now. And Pidge _was_ going to bring Lance home.

She practically leaped onto the boy's bed, reaching to hug his pillow tightly. If only it was really him, only his warmth that curled back around her, his voice soft and muffled with lips pressed to her hair, holding her close.  
" _It's okay Pidge, it'll all be okay. You'll figure this out. You always do."_

Something halts his voice. Something cold on her fingers, reaching up past his gathered-duvet.  
It's simple curiosity that has Pidge pulls herself up to sit, pushing past duvet and bed sheets and blankets until she grabs that cold box that didn't feel at home in Lance's room. Sharp-edged and plain, but with it came an eerie weight that stained Pidge's fingers from the moment she held the box with two hands in front of her.  
The clasp remained unlatched, from the last time that Lance had looked in his box. It wasn't for Pidge to let her curiosity overwhelm her and through back the lid. So she didn't. She simply leant over to the boy's shelf, using one hand to lean on the bed, the other with the weighty black cube, too big to balance on her palm.

The shelf was too far. Of course she'd drop it.  
But she forgot to hook the clasp.

Lance's things pour out onto the bed; a mix of tape and bandages, some plasters and that weird glue that the Arusians offered when Voltron finally left Arus. Pidge smiles to herself, impressed that Lance had the foresight to gather himself his own little first aid kit, what with all the bumps and bruises he accumulates through training with the team and the times he trains by himself.  
Pidge had caught him before, holding his wrist and looking pale, but when questioned about going to Coran if he felt unwell, Lance had waved it off, saying it was down to his own idiocy and he'd fix it himself; no need to bother Coran with something to small when he's also figuring out how to keep the castle maintained.

But it wasn't until Pidge's fingers caught on something sharp. Something that bite her flesh and brought her pain: a warning. She didn't take heed, and snatched up the glass in anger, cursing Lance for having something so foolish amongst his possessions that could hurt… that could… something that would…

 _No._

 _No, because that's not— It's not right, it's not Lance, he wouldn't, because he is strong, he's… he's… For fuck's sake, he's Lance, he wouldn't hurt himself, for the sake of hurting himself. He'd come to Pidge, or he'd speak to Hunk, or he'd…_

He wouldn't.  
He couldn't.  
He was _Lance._

She bit her lip, the broken shard held in her palm. _How could he do this to her? To himself?  
_ The girl just wanted to scream. Or cry. Maybe both.

But screaming and crying is all Pidge has done for the last god knows how long, trying to get the team to see reason, trying to wear herself out so that she won't have nightmares about her brother in the hands of the Galra. Crying and screaming won't change to the past, it won't change that Lance sought to hurt himself for some unknown reason. It won't change where Lance is now, and it won't change that Pidge can't reach out, wrap her small arms around the body and hug his body tight, enough to squeeze out every bad feeling until he's smiling again.  
Proper smiles, genuine smiles that stretch ear to ear.

So Pidge, ever the genius prodigy, lets her mind take over, lets logic accumulate knowledge, order it, sort it and try and provide an simple solution to the seemingly _not-simple problem_.

Lance isn't just hurting himself for the sake of hurting; he can beat himself up in the Training Hall, or let himself fall to a Galra Blade if he was really determined to end it once and for all. He hasn't told the team because he has the perception that the team's mission to defeat the Empire outweighs his own safety and wellbeing, meaning that he deals with whatever that burdens him by himself. Without being able to speak, he harms himself for release, and keep the others safe by not letting them see.

Pidge will respect Lance's decision. She won't tell the crew; that is Lance's secret to tell.  
Her role now, is to stand by him and help him bear his burden.

But to do that, she's got to find him.

* * *

"Here."

Pidge stabs the hologram with her finger, voice as tough as steel, struck hard, the echo ringing out in the deafening silence of the Bridge. They didn't want to listen to her before, but they'd listen to her now.  
She had spent hours, _hours and hours_ sat in her chair on the Bridge, hacking into the systems Allura wouldn't allow her in, for the spiteful reason of the Princess wanting to remain in control.  
But Pidge hadn't let the woman stand in her way.

She knocked down anything that stood in her fire, firewalls, password prompts, even Coran and Hunk's incessant wittering that Pidge needed sleep, she needed to have faith in Lance, that he'd come back to them when he found Red. But they didn't know Lance was burdened with more than just the task of returning with the Red Lion.  
Maybe it was the thought of their continuous failure, maybe Lance kept blaming himself that saw him take the glass to his skin again and again, drawing blood and drawing relief from all the times they had lost.

"He's somewhere here," Pidge repeated, not drawing her finger from the hologram's influx of storms, in the system of _Leuen._ "The half that Lance chased disappeared into the nebula. The half we fought followed, and haven't been seen since."

"How do you—"  
"I hacked the Galra's records," Pidge says, the tone of her voice shutting Allura up more so than from the disrespect of interrupting her. She ignores her shock and continues. "They were the patrolling ships near the _Dwale_ System where they had recorded that they were to meet with the fleet. It says they've lost contact with some Commander named Corrlux Kogane as well as his Second-In-Command."

The team look to one another, then back to Pidge, and her other hand that gestures wordlessly to the piloting mechanism of the ship. She raises a hand gesturing to herself. "Not Altean. So would one of you kindly point this hunk-of-junk in the direction of our missing Paladin, who is the only one working his hardest to get back Red—"  
"We can rush in without a plan," Shiro begins, but Pidge shuts him up with a look that she and Matt had perfected over the years of sibling rivalry.

"I've got the plan. Because I'm the only one actually _doing shit,_ while you all stand around and make excuses. You haven't even looked for Lance any more than monitor the coordinates the fleet disappeared, like imbeciles that think the Galra will pass through that exact spot again.  
"Well guess what. _They're not._ And I can tell you why, because the quadrant surrounding the _Leuen_ system and all her toxic planets, volatile nebulae and the fact that her star is breaking down signifies it as a Black Zone to the Galra. They're not allowed there. _At all."_

"We know Pidge. That's why we targeted the fleet," Hunk says, because of course they knew that _Leuen_ was a Black Zone, having pulled the information from their last successful raid on a transport patrol on the far side of _Symir._ The Galra were exempt from such areas on fear of death, and with Pidge trying to track down as many as possible to narrow their searching ground of _accessible_ space, she found the signal of a certain fleet bordering the Black Zone on an uncharted flight path.  
And now they were using the Black Zone as a hiding place.

She'd give the Commander credit where credit was due.  
She'd also give him her right hook.

"We can't jump blindly into a system dense with space storms. Both the Castle and the Lions can't navigate the environment. The interference is too strong, I wouldn't be able to find a lock for the portal and we'd be ripped apart."  
"Then jump _outside_ the storm and we'll fly in," Pidge says, her tone cold and growing colder still at the impatience that Lance is waiting for them. _Why bother waiting for a team that aren't doing their damndest to help him.  
_ She is though. And she _is_ going to get Allura to pilot this damn castle, or she's going to take Green and get Lance back by herself. It will take her weeks; the Princess jumped the Castle three systems away for the sake of losing the Galra before they decimated the Castle, but that means they've stranded Lance, three systems away, upon a fleet in _a Black Zone._

"Pidge?"  
It's Shiro who is brave enough to approach, looking between Pidge and the hologram that shows Lance's suspected position. "Allura is right, _Leuen_ is dangerous." Pidge makes to speak, but a hand on her shoulder halts words, Shiro turning back to the team. "But Pidge is right too. We've been waiting for Lance to bring Red back to us for three days and he hasn't made contact yet. We will find the fleet again and provide Lance a distraction to take Red back."

 _Fucking finally._

"Then let's go," Pidge says, the first smile in days pulling at her lips, but before it can sit comfortably, Shiro is already shaking his head, going back on his words. "First we need a plan. You've given us a location, but if you jump in, guns blazing, it might go wrong, and Lance will pay the price," he says, raising his voice before Pidge can interrupt like she has been doing frequently.  
"Isn't " _all guns blazing"_ the plan anyway? If we jump in on them, they'll be caught off guard."  
"And Allura already said the Castle can't bear it."  
"Then send the Lions."  
"There are only three of us," Hunk adds, stepping in, trying to be mediator, but inadvertently stands against Pidge and her plans to save her brother. "Lance is strong enough to wait a little more—"

"No, he's not," Pidge yells, angry now. She almost had their ears, their voted in her favour, but as the prize was held out in waiting palms it was cruelly snatched back from her grasp. They were all just laughing at her.  
"You have no idea what he's going through, not now, not ever," she yells, anger boiling under her skin as she watched from the doorway as Lance takes the glass to his skin again and again, smiling from the pain it brings. It wasn't hard to imagine, watching the blood trickle down his arms when he cut too deep, the frantic way he's scramble for the bandages before blood could drop and begin the ripple of questions from those around him.  
He'd bind his arms and bind his mouth, gagging himself before he could cry out for help. He didn't want to be a burden to the team, and in turn, he'd turn on himself over and over, more blood, more pain, more punishment.  
 _But what happened when the punishment went too far._

"He's smart Pidge, he'll keep himself from the Galra—"  
"It's not the Galra I'm worried about," Pidge yelled, tears streaking her face, marring the sight of Coran, of Hunk, of _all of them who didn't know, all of them pushing Lance closer and closer to the edge with their ignorance—_

"I'm worried about him! The longer he leaves us waiting, the more he's going to think he's a failure. He keeps blaming himself and he's beating himself up _every time,_ but at least he has the Castle to hide in, to stop and breathe for a moment. If he's on that ship, he can't let his guard down at all. He's already breaking enough," she yells, voice cracking, mind tumbling too-quick, too-fast to catch her words, "he already carves himself up like some stupid redemption he searches for, because he's blaming himself."

The team pull back, faces white in shock but still Pidge continues, firing words like bullets from a gun.  
Unrelenting. Undefendable.

"He's never said anything, not wanting to burden us, because he knows we're all focused on Red. _Too focused_ on Red, blind to the fact that Lance is right next to us, _breaking_ and… and…

"And we're not even there for him now."

Her words pierce deep, bleeding tears streaming down Allura's face, Hunk's face. Coran is speechless, Shiro just as shocked.

Pidge is mortified. She wasn't supposed to say anything, she wasn't going to say anything, _that was Lance's secret to admit._ And Pidge took that away from him.

She ran.

.

* * *

They find her in Blue's cockpit.  
They didn't know if it was because Pidge was searching for her Brother, or that she had run blind and it was Blue, who knew the young Paladin was searching for her pilot who had scooped her up in her arms and held her close. There's no anger to Hunk and Shiro for their choice of standing back, and allows them into her cockpit too, the door closing behind them, much like a mother's stern look, telling them to apologise.

"Pidge?"  
"I don't want to talk about it."

She's curled up on the chair, knees tucked up to their chin. She looks undeniably miserable, the trembling of her lip enough to stutter Hunk's pre-planned words of apology. Shiro's words falter too and they stay in silence.

Until; "It's not that I don't want to talk about it. Because I don't," she says, casting them a look. "But then, I do. But it's not my place. It's Lance's secret and I shouldn't have said anything."  
"But you already have," Shiro urges, but Pidge stands firm. "Yeah, I already made one mistake and you're not about to push me into making another. So either help me patch this, or get your asses back up to the Bridge, turn this Castle around and: _Go. Get. Lance."_

Shiro sighs, dry-washing his face with his palm. Hunk averts his eyes but he looks just as guilty when their ' _oh so fearless leader'_ turns around and says "Pidge we can't. I've already explained why."

"It wouldn't stop Lance."  
She was right, and they knew it.

"It wouldn't stop him and you know it. He'd search for any of us, _all of us,_ come hell or high water and all you guys want to do is blame the weather and wait till it blows over. It doesn't matter, you might as well start planning his funeral rather than a welcome back party."  
Pidge's anger wasn't a surprise, but Shiro didn't feel like he deserved the constant barrage constantly sent his way. Yet before the fool could think to question the youngest of the team, the very ground shakes. But it's not the ground, it's Blue. She isn't shaking, but standing, and they inside her chest are powerless to stop her.

"Blue, Blue what are you doing?" Hunk yells, pushed between the doorway to stop himself from being thrown back into her cargo hold. But Blue doesn't listen. She doesn't even acknowledge the Paladins inside her as she stands, runs and leaps from her hangar, taking to the stars to find her Cub, if the Paladins of Voltron refuse to do it themselves.  
She'd find him. She'd bring him back home.


	7. Crossroads

**WARNING: This chapter contains Self-Harm.**

 **.**

* * *

 **SEVEN**

Being lost in an unknown alien jungle was terrifying enough when Lance was with his friends, safe in the knowledge that everyone was there with him, fighting alongside him.  
It's an entirely different ballpark when Lance is all by himself, armed with nothing but a small knife that barely extends his reach further than a hand at best. On top of that, his Paladin armour is incomplete: half of the solidified shell-overlay missing and a pissing, bleeding wound that is undoubtedly drawing in all sorts of danger.

"Dammit Keith, aren't you meant to be here by now," he curses, not one hundred percent sure if he's actually joking when he thinks about the Galra finding him. If he was planning to, he's sure Keith would've already found him by now, most likely cussed him out and threatened to drag Lance back to the cave by his ear, considering how easy it was the first few thousand times he had tried, and failed, to slip away unnoticed.

Then again, for the last few thousand times that Lance had given Keith the slip, his goal had always Red, barely a few feet from the starting line. Now, Lance had abandoned his usual trek, pushing his still-healing body far beyond its normal limits, searching for something that even _he_ had no clue what is could be.

And now, he's stuck in the middle of the jungle, wondering if calling out for the other would be the death of him or…. No, it would definitely be the death of him, whether Keith came or not.  
It was just deciding if he wanted to die by fang or blade.

Lance's leg is still giving him grief, so it's not like he can move terribly fast, picking his way through gnarled roots and overly-large jungle trees that tease him as he scrambles over one, jars hi knee, only to tumble back to the rotting earth on the other side, stuck between two roots meaning he has to do it all over again, no matter which way he chooses to go.

The boy is nearing exhaustion when he finds himself in a clearing, perhaps and hour or so's journey from the cave, if the slow incline of sunrise is anything to trust. Trust is used loosely, remembering that when he had slipped out once, at night (only to retreat back from fear of freezing to death), he had been sure that the moon, which, he had been sure _was_ the moon, blinked.  
Needless to say, Lance doesn't trust anything he can't physically touch.

The clearing is a part of that, but when Lance stumbles further into the clearing, it doesn't gobble him up, nor does it evaporate like a poorly painted mirage. Instead, he feels the coarse needles of strange reeds against his fingers, pushing past to shorter, knee-high grass that stands dry, soft and inviting enough that he doesn't overly care when his foot catches stone, his knees forced to buckle and the boy falls to the earth with a less that graceful _umph.  
_ Shouldn't be long until Keith finds him now. He can just lie here and wait.

Lie and wait for the team to find him too.

They were looking for him, naturally, having to pick up the pieces where Lance failed, having left everything broken in his wake. He should be better than this; better than stranding himself on a planet with a Lion who won't wake, with a Galra who might be, or might not be the enemy.

What would they think, when they found him?  
Would they be upset he had gone so long?  
Would they be worried that he was hurt?

Or would they be angry at him for _getting_ hurt, for not being able to follow the simple orders that Shiro had given him: to get Red and get back to them.  
But Red is hurt. Or at least, in stasis, and she won't respond to Lance, no matter how much he tries to talk to her.

Allura and Shiro said that Lance was the quickest to bond with his lion, but none of them had considered that he _wouldn't_ be able to bond with Red.

And that got Lance to thinking. What if it wasn't just Red?  
What if he didn't even have a bond with Blue? Not a real one anyway, not like the other paladin share with their Lions. What if Blue wasn't his lion in the first place, that he was never meant to be a Paladin, and was simply chosen to ferry the real Paladins of Voltron to the Castle Of Lions.  
Maybe Allura was the real Blue Paladin, and another would take the mantle as Red Paladin, leaving Lance to be nothing but an ornament on the shelf, his only use to collect dust.

 _Maybe Lance really was useless._

The uncontrollable urge welled up inside him. Like the tide of the ocean; unstoppable and powerful, it soaks into his mind, dousing every flickering flame of hope, drowning his mind with nothing but the same, suffocating thoughts.

And there, resting in his hand, as if simply waiting for him, was Keith's dagger.

The edge was sharper than glass; the lines left longer, and deeper without the painful sting of torn flesh. But it is with pain that brings retribution, and Lance's hand presses hard, the wounds deepening with every strike, for every dark thought that bleeds into his mind like the blood that bleeds from his arm.

They begin, uniform in both depth and length, a momentum to the need not to dig too deep to destroy, not too long to let them see fresh, new, above the icy white of past mistakes. Past regrets. Past failures.

Lance's life was never meant to turn out this way.  
He was supposed to grow up, happy and healthy, be it Altea or Earth or any other planet where someone could love him for who he was. He was supposed to make friends, close friends forever, and those that will come and go. He was meant to figure everything out, discover his purpose, find his place in the world. In the Universe.

The rain began to fall, lightly at first, dripping down his cheeks and framing his face.  
The red of his arm caught rain and trickled into the emerald spears of grass beneath him, the faults and a thousand mistakes staining the ground. It's a strange feeling of pain and relief, mixed together as all the weight, all the hurt, all of his faux pas', his faults fade away…  
All of them trickle down his arms, in stains of red, washed away by the rain like they never existed in the first place.

Maybe this time, Lance can fade away with it all, into memories and a remembrance much sweeter than his own existence.

* * *

Keith was quick to learn that _Venris_ only differed between hot, sticky heat and torturous rain.  
He hated both weather patterns, neither being better than the other. But hot sticky heat didn't wash away Lance's footprints. So maybe there was an easy choice to which Keith preferred, in this moment at least.  
But the weather wasn't his to command and he had no choice but to trek through the jungle, weighed down by his wet, heavy fur; the constant flicking of his ears to rid them of the droplets where they irritated him where he was most sensitive.  
His nose can't push past the constant wet of rain, the stale, dead grass, the earthiness of wet mud, the sharp-striking-metal of blood—

 _Blood._

Keith catches the scent on the low, weak-willed winding breeze from somewhere to his right, just beyond the curving of Lance's footsteps where he has come to a dead end and backtracked for an easier route to wherever he had been heading.  
Keith pushes himself faster, his eyes scanning the ground, the trunks, even the lower branches of the giant trees for a smear of blood that isn't his or Lance's, but hopefully instead a scavenger that had found its food in the form of another.

With every step, the copper-scent grew in strength, pulling deep at the instinct of Keith.  
 _Prey,_ something old and ancient told him. _Hurt_ said another, but Keith ignored the thirsting in his throat, pushing past the veil of steady-coming rain, the entangled roots as he chased the trail of blood deeper and deeper into the jungle, until trees parted and grass blanketed the earth.  
And there, just beyond the canopy shade, an Altean sat upon damp grass.

Blood surrounded him.

"Lance!"

Lance looks up, rain and tears upon his face, his scent damp as much as the boy himself, sitting there.  
There is no familiarity to the surrender of his being when Keith can grab his hands, ducking down into his personal space to search for the wounds that bleed sluggishly. There are many of them, cut into his left wrist, sliced long and sharp down his forearm where claws have caught unguarded skin a split it open to reveal the ripeness of fresh blood underneath.  
Keith doesn't recognise them as scavenger's talons and it worries him that there is another that hunts upon this planet; deadlier than Treecreepers, more viscous than the roamers and scavengers that would have already picked up on the scent of fresh blood, already on the hunt—

"Lance, where is it?" Keith asked, trying to not focus on dead eyes that don't really see him, ignoring the fear of _venom,_ reaching down for his mother's knife to arm himself, already bloodied where Lance has defended himself against whatever that has found him, _hurt him, bled him_ —

"Lance? Where is it? _What_ is it? Did you get a good look, did you see where it... went...?"

But there is no trail of blood that leads away from Lance, no grass crushed underfoot where the fleeing of the beast is marked by trail.  
There is nothing more than his own blood upon the Keith's blade, and the marks aren't claw-like but blade-like—

Understanding returns to the other, Lance trying to pull his hands away, but Keith just holds on, an iron grip that doesn't hurt. Just holds still. He's staring at Lance's arms, both of them, trying to understand why he hadn't considered it before.  
He's already seen the marks, thought them to be battle wounds and nothing more, never for once thinking the marks too clean, too precise to be anything more than a scar by his own hand. A torturer wouldn't leave anything so clean.

Lance's forearms, underneath the blood and the fresh wounds, were pale already-healed scars where blades and knives had already left their mark. Some are neat, parallel; uniform as they stand in rows of four, with another striking through them, holding them all together like they stand for something.  
But they do, all of them. Even the rough, jagged scars that draw marks from wrist to elbow and beyond the tight-weave suit of Lance's under-armour.  
They all hold a purpose, the many, _many_ scars interlinking, until one was hard to tell from the other.

"It's nothing," Lance mumbles, eyes tired, voice drunk with exhaustion. His eyes are red-rimmed, hurting, rain mixing with tears as they rush down his cheeks, the light blue marks pale and greying in comparison to the first time Keith had seen them.

"You're hurting yourself."

When Keith speaks, his voice is ashen and raspy. He doesn't understand why, doesn't understand that Lance is the monster he fights in this clearing, doesn't understand _how_ Lance could raise blade and tear flesh for… for… _what reason?  
_ "Why?" he asks, voice not quite normal. Keith isn't even sure if it's him who asked, but there is no one else here, so of course it has to be him.

"Because," Lance replies, a shrug of his shoulders, his gaze dropped to the floor where the rain is soaking into his amour. His hair is slick to his head, his fringe covering his eyes, looking more like a kicked kit than Keith ever has.  
The rain still falls around them, making it uncomfortable, and the smell of blood is going to draw in all kinds of predators. But Lance doesn't look like he's going to be moving anytime soon.

Keith tugs on his arms, mindful of the fresh wounds as he does so. "C'mon, let's get back—"  
"I can't go back." It's an actual sentence this time, but that doesn't mean it makes any more sense than his _"because."_

"Yes you are, you're coming back so you can fly Red—"  
"She doesn't want me," Lance says, his head still dropped, fresh tears landing in his lap. Keith pulls him again, ignoring words that don't make sense in favour of taking Lance back to the safety of their makeshift shelter. But Keith's efforts mean nothing to Lance, who lets his body slump, his arms held up where Keith holds them, his body heavy and unmoving. He really means what he is saying, even if the meaning is lost on one as stubborn as Keith.

"Blue didn't even want me. No one wanted me. Not my parents, not my family, not even Voltron." He looks up, eyes misting and tear-stained. Keith's chest tightened, but any comfort he thought Lance asked for is ignored as the Altean continued. "They haven't come to find me. Even if they did come, it wouldn't be for me. It would be for Red. They need her to fight this war. They need you too."  
"Me?" Keith doesn't understand, caught between trying to figure out what Lance is saying and still trying to get him to come with him, back to the cave where he can stop the sluggish bleed that still stains the damp jungle grass.

"You're Galran, but you're not with the Galra. You're a strong fighter. You have knowledge, experience, that could help them," Lance says, his words void of emotion. Matter-of-fact in nature as he continues, believing every word he speaks.  
"You're useful to them. You would mean something. You'd make a difference in this war."

"Lance, I don't—"  
"They need you Keith. They don't need me."

The boy dropped his head, shoulders, body following suit as he stared at the muddy, blood-stained earth.

" _No one needs me."_

And he means it.

He means every word he says, every scar that burns through copper into white, ghosting slices that scream that same words that shatter the rain-soaked silence of admittance.  
 _No one needs me,_ they say. He says. He _believes._

"I need you."

Keith didn't think before he spoke. It's like the words were inevitable, some soft, caring part of him needing to stop those tears and see colour back in the boy's misted eyes.  
Keith doesn't regret the words. He hears them, hears the echo of them, and knows them to be true.

Lance lifts his head, face blank, but perhaps a slight furrow in brow where a question pushes upon his lip.

"I need you," Keith repeated. Vehement, strong. Truth.  
Lance's eyes widen. Something akin to hope flickers in his eyes, but the grip Keith has on his hands isn't reciprocated. Keith tugs them, pulling Lance closer, faces mere centimetres apart. "I need you Lance. If it wasn't for you being trapped here with me, with Red, then I would've given up long ago."

Lance makes to turn cheek, but Keith catches his face in soft, damp paws, brushing away the boy's fringe so that both eyes stare into one another's; mahogany-gold, electric-purple.

"I need you to fly Red when she wakes, to take us off this planet. I need you to return to Voltron. You're the Blue Paladin, _of course_ you to need to go back."  
Lance closes his eyes, trying to shake his head in Keith's hold. "I'm not—"  
"If you're not the Blue Paladin, then who the hell was the idiot that chewed a hole through my ship, jumped aboard a battlecruiser, by themselves, and fought off the ship's commander for the sake of procuring another Lion?"

Lance smiles slightly, maybe even laughs, but it comes out as a huff of air. "Yeah, that was pretty stupid of me, wasn't it?"  
"Maybe, but it took guts too. The number of friends I know that would do that can be counted on one hand." He pulled back, dropping Lance's face but not moving quite out his comfort zone just yet. He held up a paw, a single finger raised. Lance looked to it, his brow furrowing, a question poised on his tongue but Keith spoke first.  
"You're the only one I know who would do that. You're the only one that _could_ do it, be it your bravura or your stupidity."

"Hey," Lance bit suddenly, colour in his cheeks, turning a half scowl on the Galra sat cross-legged before him.  
Keith just smiled. "There's that Lance I know.

"Now come on. It's raining and I'm wet. The cave will be more comfortable than this clearing."  
He doesn't give the Altean any time to argue his words; that hand already gripping Lance's used to pull the boy to his feet, steady him where he stumbles for a moment. Keith, still by his side, just moves closer, trying not to let his eyes linger on the slow, sluggish bleed that continues to drip down Lance's arm. The warmth of blood soaks into his fur; unpleasant as rain, copper-rust against his nose.

He cleans his mom's knife on the grass at his feet, and again on the leg of his armour before sliding it into the sheath on his hip. Lance looks to it, trying not to let his eyes linger as Keith does with the boy's wounds.

"I'm not taking it from you. But if we're attacked between here and the cave, I've got two working arms."  
Keith didn't need to give an explanation. Lance certainly wasn't looking for one, but he accepted what was said with a slight smile and a bump from his shoulder.

"Thanks. You didn't need to—"  
"I wanted to."

Which was… _true._

Lance was openly grinning now; that familiar, smug smile sat bright on wide lips. Keith pulled back his hand, aiming for the boy's gut with a half-hearted fist. "Watch it," he hissed, but he didn't really mean anything by it, his fist barely scuffing Lance's chest. He laughed, the noise much more inviting that than his slow, sombre words that cut at himself, just as the blades had, over and over.

"Careful Galra. Anyone would think you're going soft."

They walked in comfortable silence, Keith lending Lance support when the trek asked for it, accompanied by many " _how the hell did you get this far in the first place?"_

Still, Keith continues to watch over Lance, unable to pull his eyes from drying blood, staring back to the damp trail that will undoubtedly draw in scavengers when the rain lets up. Hopefully the rain will wash away the scent they leave, or Lance's cuts will stop bleeding long before they reach the cave.

"It's fine. They don't hurt."

 _Ah.  
_ Keith was staring.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean—" he stutters, batting the words out the air, hurrying for silence before he could understand his own anger that furrowed his brow when he looked upon Lance's self-inflicted pain.

But no matter how much he tries to pull his mind away, he can't. He tries to focus on his footsteps, watching for roots and trip-falls as he takes lead. But Lance stumbles, and Keith grabs him; grabs his arm where blood still seeps and pain is electricity under the Altean's skin.  
"Ah god, I'm sorry, I'm sorry I didn't mean—"  
"It's fine. It's my fault," Lance smiles, pushing off his knees where pain had buckled them, biting lips to stop another cry of pain echoing up between the falling rain. It is his turn to take lead, Keith feeling helpless. He didn't realise he had begun to care. He didn't realise he cared so much.

Why?

 _Why do you do it?  
_ _Why do you hurt yourself?  
_ _Why do you let yourself feel this pain?_

"Why?"

Lance stops. Stares at his feet. "Does there need to be a why?"  
"There's reason for everything. I'm asking for yours."

But for Lance, there never really has been a solid _why.  
_ Punishment came afterwards, an excuse more than a reason. Meditative he remembers when he first saw blood upon skin and felt release. Not pain, not fear. It was meditative to him like the sea once was. But is that really his _'why,'_ or is it an excuse he's pulled between blood, scars, water, tears.

The sting of reality presses deep into his arm, his fingers the pressure that grounds him as everyone rushes back around, him, swirling around like smoke, around his ankles, around his neck, over his eyes before it sits, heavy, writhing, upon his chest.

"I don't have a why."

"Then, _because."_

Because it brings me peace.  
Because I deserve it. Somehow, somewhen, I'll deserve it again.  
Because the pain grounds me. Because the pain makes me real.

And what if that is all he is.  
Pain, in this moment until the next, just drifting like morning dew until another, brighter, warm light melts him into memory and he becomes another body on the battlefield. Another memory in the minds of people who never really knew him. Who would never really know him, because why would he want to show them his scars and his hurt and his pain?

"Because it is the only thing that is real."

It is Lance's. It is what he has control over.  
The scars feed the thirst for other desires - the coarse of rope, itchy and tight around his throat, the fire of the blade between his ribs, the flow of blood that cannot be stopped until there is no more to pour and he really just was a moment in all things. Now only a memory.

"You are real," Keith says, because Keith doesn't understand.  
"I exist," Lance tells him, pushing on, a hand on tree root, steadying himself as dreams crowd his mind. "But I don't know who I am, Altean or Human. Well, I know. I just don't want to _be."_

Be Altean.  
Lose Earth.

Be Human.  
Lose himself.


	8. Gentle

**Chapter Eight:** Gentle

Keith knows Lance's secrets, but he doesn't act as Lance expected.

* * *

The silence wasn't… _heavy_.

Sure, it was unpleasant and as uncomfortable as the cold of the rocks that dug into Lance's spine as he leant back against the curvature of the cavern walls.  
But it wasn't heavy. And that was the point.

Lance remains focused on the way that Keith sat hunched opposite him, poking the still-smouldering fire, teasing it into devouring the kindle so they could warm the air and dry themselves from the downpour.  
The unspoken questions clogged the air; like smog hanging low, burning Lance's eyes no matter how much he wiped at them, clawing at the betrayal that bared itself upon his cheeks.

He doesn't say anything.

Neither does Keith, contrary to Lance's fears.

He has imagined rejection so often within his own mind that the soft gentle of Keith's demeanour has him on guard more than all his thoughts of _Galra_ and _enemy_ and _threat._ He had expected anger should anyone ever catch him in the act of slicing skin, spilling blood and hate into a world that didn't want him.

But Keith isn't angry or hurt or accusatory, but instead wary when he approaches, not meeting the boy's eye when he reaches for Lance's still bleeding arm. Washed with rainwater and wrapped in a medicinal palm, Keith is gentle with his touches as he works.  
He doesn't fill the silence with needless words, or ask Lance to do it for him.

There's something about the soft, gentle sting underneath Keith's bindings that bring comfort to the cold cool air of early morning. There's comfort in the lingering pain, whereas before the aftermath of his self-inflicted punishment only brought dull-stormy-grey-emptiness, tiredness that swamped him, anger still curling his fingers around the cold, cool blade of glass that hadn't done enough, _would never do enough, until deep, too deep, too much, too much blood—_

Keith pauses at the sight of fresh tears. Lance just turns away, eyes unseeing upon the bleak grey of rain beyond the cave.  
It is comfortable, he thinks, wondering if there was really something broken with him if he considered being trapped and injured on a foreign planet with a Galran Commander who could kill him at any chance over just being alone in the dark of his room back on the Castle.

 _Broken_ , the word echoes in his mind while rain fills the silence and pain fills Lance's mind as he cannot help but wait for the inevitable; still unable to accept the comfort given for what it is despite the prickling truth that Keith has not changed in the way he approaches Lance.  
Except maybe he's slower, and more deliberate in the way he catches the boy's eyes to ask permission rather than vocalise his questions.

Lance appreciates it, nodding his head when Keith moves from his arm to his leg, to where the rock had sliced deep just a few days before. It's funny how it doesn't hurt him more than the hurt in his chest, but then Lance hasn't ever really been able to pay attention to too much at one time.  
It's the Human way of thinking he has adopted so long on Earth. Something that alienates him from the truth that he isn't… that he is Aerllons, and was never really Lan—

"Does it hurt?"

Keith has withdrawn his touch, worried that he hadn't been cautious enough and that the fresh tears are his doing when he wraps the bindings too tight.  
"No. You're fine," Lance says, voice thick with emotion. Keith pauses, nods, and return to covering the cut again. "There are more Soori," Keith says, a hand offered to help lead Lance closer to the firepit, before searching in their inventory of scavenged food, offering the rest of the remaining leaves. Lance takes them, graciously, while Keith busies himself with restocking the fire so that it can warm the cave and will not burn itself out before he returns from hunting.

Keith has not changed.

Maybe he was one of the few that would never change, accepting all the parts of Lance, accepting him the whole of him, no matter the broken parts. His presence didn't make Lance feel watched, like he needed a sitter so the idiot wouldn't keep hurting himself, wouldn't keep scarring up his body and ruin the image of perfect Paladin the princess preaches daily.  
He doesn't make Lance feel any less for the enemy within his own head, how some moments are harder than others.

Keith has not changed.  
He certainly is still stupid enough to consider heading out in the downpour in search of food.

And Lance, who hadn't thought to invite himself into a fight over such nonsense, is surprised that his hand caught hold of Keith's when he made for outside.

They both look to their joined hands. Then, to one another.  
Keith's face remained characteristically blank; his expression unreadable. Lance didn't know what face he was making.  
He didn't understand why he had reached out when he had and why he can't bring himself to let go….

Slowly, Keith settles himself back down, without saying a word. He sits close to Lance, closer than they had last night when Lance had finally accepted company and the skewered lizard as non-poisonous.  
They sit side by side one another, a firm line of touch running from shoulder to knee, but it's not enough Lance thinks, seeking the familiar arms of his Mama, his brothers and sisters back on Earth.

Later, he would blame the static in his brain for the way he rests his head on Keith's shoulder, tiredness pulling at damp eyes as he watches the flickering of golden flames pop and crackle along the firewood. Distantly, he feels Keith's tension bleed into nothing, and the slightest movement of his arm loops around his arm and allows himself to be leaned against more comfortably.

They don't say anything.

They don't need to.

They just sit in amiable silence, until they're not and they're laid side by side, Keith's arms curled around Lance who buries himself into the Galra's chest, feeling fur upon his cheek, surrounded by the boy's scent and his arms and the gentle rumble deep in his chest.  
Keith is asleep, Lance realises, only dimly aware that he had been earlier and will be soon, eyes drifting down, purple fading to black and sleep embracing them both, both far too tired to dream.


	9. Betrayal

**Chapter Nine:** Betrayal

Lance knew they'd be looking for him. he just hoped that he had sorted out his… _whatever_ with Keith before they did.

* * *

The quiet of the late evening rain is broken by the thundering of the storm outside. While sleep dragged the two boys into the early afternoon, it had dragged the storm from beyond the distant mountains until the skies were filled with howling rains and clapping thunder and the flash of lightning as bright as the midday sun that startled both into waking in the same moment.

Instinctively, and embarrassingly, Lance finds his hands curling into Keith, seeking for the warmth that had pulled away. Had he minded, he would've made the excuse that it was his still-sleepy state, but instead he found that he didn't particularly care that he clung to Keith, or that Keith lets himself be clung to, a hand firmly gripping Lance's arm to keep the boy close to him.  
While sleeping, they had moved closer to one another, legs entangled, arms embracing until they're not and Keith is the first to sit up, not quite pulling himself away, but enough that the cold of the air sends a bitter chill creeping along Lance's skin, stealing the warmth that he had found within the Galra's arms.

The thunder cracks again: a whip lashing across the sky to frighten children into their beds.  
It reminds Lance of storms back on Earth, the familiar jolt of shock a comfort that blossoms warmth within his chest.  
But Keith is unsettled; fear and threat warring within him, escaped in a low hiss when lightning flashes and the world is cast in its brilliance for a second before sheer darkness consumes everything once more. His ears are pressed low to the back of his head, the familiar whap of his tail batting against Lance's leg in the seconds between lightning strikes.

"It's only the thunderstorm," Lance hears himself saying, a raised hand catching Keith's chin to pull his wide-eyes from where they are fixed beyond the yawning mouth of the cave. His touches are soft, barely there, and Lance isn't forcing Keith to look at him but simply pulling him closer; to read the want in his eyes.  
Lightning flashes. His ears flick uncomfortably, pulling against the hold of Lance upon his cheek to stare beyond the cave again. This time, his teeth are bared. The thunder is not the only one growling.

"Can't you hear that?"  
"The wind?" It's not like Lance is sure what _that_ is, but Keith's more attuned to sounds and smells than he is. "It could just be the rain, or it's a scavenger in the trees," he says, taking Keith's hand in hopes to lead them back to their earlier comfort.  
The cold is beginning to creep back in – they've been asleep long enough that the dried roots that have been supplying their bonfire have long since burnt to ash, and now only a few cobble embers give light and a whit of warmth that is nothing compared to the silk of Keith's fur around him.

Lance is too tired to feel embarrassment. His mind is groggy, his body aching and the deeper cuts along his arms are beginning to sting.  
Lance doesn't want to think about anything. He doesn't want to _feel_ anything.  
He just wants to return to the blank of his mind, to let his body heal and gather strength. And maybe in the light of the new dawn, they can face whatever this comfort is together.  
For now, tiredness calls.

Only, Keith refuses to lie back down.

His eyes are transfixed upon the entrance to the cave, ears flicking, not in disquietude as Lance thought, but as if he's trying to hear beneath the rumbling of the storm clouds; trying to hear more than the wind howling through the trees and the drumming of rain beating down hard upon the smooth rock outcrop of where they shelter.

The storm has him on edge, but it's more than that.  
Maybe it's because Lance is fighting the act of waking, or if its Keith's heightened abilities that allow him to hear more, see more in the darkness, but despite any real effort on Lance's behalf, he cannot discern anything above the sound of the tempest outside.

"Keith, it's only thunder," the boy, eyes upon the horizon, the child in him already counting the seconds for the flash of light that would illuminate the world beyond their cave.  
And there, in the distance, the flash of light hidden above the clouds, already fading until—

This time, the light does not fade.  
It remains to shine, half suspended in the sky; flickering like the sun, as if it could not keep itself aflame.

But it is not the sun.

It may have been the storm that stirred them from their sleep, but Keith had heard more than rain and wind. He is cautious where Lance is not; feeling something lift inside him when he hears the rumbling growl of a Lion, of the calm that Blue brings when Lance presses his palms to her metal and counts his breathing with her light bright and warm inside his mind.  
Lance is filled with relief, laughter bubbling up, too tired to consider his fear of failure when he is flooded with the deliverance of his family having found him. He knew it would only be a matter of time; that whatever held them back was no more. Maybe they had to fight through Keith's fleet – made harder without him there to provide support – or maybe it was something else, but that doesn't matter now because they've _found him._

Without thought for his leg, or for anything else, Lance clambers to his feet, ignoring the way Keith grips his wrist, the way he doesn't hold on as Lance rushes out into the rain, face to the sky as the light envelops him.  
And remains.

"Lance!"

The thunder rumbles far above, but it is not loud enough to drown out the heavy thrum of engines as they continue their steady approach to the Planet's surface. The rain and the wind make it hard to see which Lion it is, and there's a flickering of emptiness that has Lance wishing for Blue, but knowing she cannot pilot herself, but they're here.

Keith, cautious and an enemy of the rain, had not wanted to leave the sanctity of the cave, but Lance had no such notion. Despite Keith's desire to remain dry, he chased the Altean out onto the plateau, a hand grabbing hold of his arm, trying to pull him back.

Another crack echoes in the dark, throwing both their eyes wide. Lance has heard that sound before, he knows he has, but the familiarity won't lend itself to his mind as another shine of light sweeps the plateau. Which is… _odd.  
_ He would have thought Shiro and the others would've only needed one lion, perhaps Black or Yellow to come retrieve Red. Unless they thought that they were going to assess her damage before trying to move her.

The thunder booms directly overhead, the two of them staring upwards as the ships finally break the cloud cover.  
And there, hovering in the air above them, Lance comes face to face with three Galran ships. His stomach seems to devour itself. The relief of being found is struck into terror and Lance can't help the way he stumbles a step backwards, held fast by the grip on his arm, a plea bubbling up from his lips because they need to run, they need to, _"Keith we need to run."_

Keith doesn't run.

He doesn't move, simply turning to face Lance and he's Keith is speaking fast; words flying from his mouth like bullets, moving in closer. His hand curls tighter around Lance's wrist, his words hurled quick and fast, but they're not loud enough to breach above the thunder, the engines, the sound of Lance's own questions because he can't hear him.  
Lance pulls for his arm, but Keith just moves with the motion, stepping into Lance's space, eyes wide and…

He stops: his scarily blank as Lance drinks drank in the sight before him of Keith illuminated in the light from above. He turned to it, bared his fangs to the storm; his face plain with the light of an emotion Lance had yet to see.

 _Resignation._

"We need to run—?"  
" _Trust me."_

Keith turns back to the Galran ships, watching as the two escorts remain hovering in the air as the much larger ship descends; not flinching when legs protrude from the hole to steady the ship into landing, nor the lowered release of a walkway. And as he stares, the stature of Keith's body begins to change.  
He seems to grow in height; the litheness of his body graceful in a way that bleeds power; his body rigid but strong and Lance's mind is cast back to Garrison ceremonies when they were taught to stand in parade position while leading soldiers talked and talked without ever saying anything.  
 _Commander,_ comes the thought, quick and sharp like the snap of a whip; all warmth-summer-candle hope of trust and friendship and _cuddling_ crushed in the grip that winds tighter around Lance's wrist; painful over the wounds he inflicted upon himself, and yet none of them as painful as that which stains like black ink deep inside.

"Keith," Lance pleas, confusion cloying his throat. He doesn't want to believe; doesn't want to abandon the hope; doesn't want to throw away the truth that Keith had every opportunity to kill him as their world of two crumbles around them.

The Galra simply tightens his grip, the tips of his claws pressing deliberately tight into Lance's wrists. The cuts from the blade are still tender, still sore. Lance bites back a whimper but doesn't hold back the tears. "Keith, please, let go _. You're hurting me,_ " he begs, desperate to flee. To the cave, to the jungle, to Red.  
He can make it if he ignores the cramping in his leg, if he doesn't think about the blood that trickles down his arms, the stuttering of his heart as the truth floods in because they can make it if they run, _we can make it Keith, just come with m_ —

"Stop struggling. You'll only hurt yourself further."  
Keith's voice was edged with a bitter-burn, taut as piano wire, tangling around Lance's mind that batters away and thoughts he had of running, staring at the boy who still holds impossibly tight, rigid and uniform in the way he stands, staring up at the ships, as if he was waiting for—

" _No…,"_ Lance whispers, fleeing forgotten as he stares, wet eyes at the boy that traps him in this moment of breaking. Everything, breaking, falling apart.  
Lance, falling apart.

He had failed.  
Failed himself. Failed the team. Failed Red.  
He hadn't gotten away. He hadn't escaped the trap that the enemy had set for him. Instead he had lain down and waited for the predators to close in around him, to snare him with the delicate of their lies until there was nowhere to run. And he _hates_ it because when Lance had first woken, he had raised his guard and kept it there, but as the days dragged on and the only company he kept was Keith's…

"Y-You—"

Aching, throbbing pain coursed through him, the haze of his growing fever abandoned as he stared between the ships and Keith who refuses to give Lance the decency of turning to face him.  
"You lied," he spat, voice raised to carry above the rain. His body remained posed to run, to charge and fight, to destroy this Galra that slipped past his defences and donned the disguise of _friendship._

Pain in his arm.  
Pain in his heart.

"You lied to me," Lance growls, tone accusatory and hurt and _broken_ , ready to draw himself up to his full height, taller than Kei—taller than the Galra that was, and always had been, his enemy. "You bastard, you tricked me, you— _you…_

" _You lied to me."_


End file.
